A list of 139 specimens of bats belonging to 32 species of eight families originating from Zambia... more A list of 139 specimens of bats belonging to 32 species of eight families originating from Zambia, housed in the collection of the National Museum, Prague, Czech Republic, is presented in a systematical review. The species lists are complemented by comments on distribution and morphometry data. The specimens represent 73 new records (species vs. locality) of bats from Zambia. The collection contains two species new for the Zambian fauna, Afropipistrellus grandidieri and Neoromicia somalica. Two species, Rhinolophus sakejiensis and Chaerephon bivittatus are documented for the second time from Zambia, the former bat for the first time after the species description at all. The record localities of Epomophorus labiatus, Rhinolophus mossambicus, and Neoromicia somalica shift margins of the whole known distribution ranges of these bats. In Epomophorus dobsonii, Nyctinomus aegyptiacus, Glauconycteris variegata, Pipistrellus rusticus, Scotophilus leucogaster, and S. viridis, the collection ...
The soft ticks of the genus Reticulinasus Schulze, 1941 (family Argasidae Koch, 1844) are ectopar... more The soft ticks of the genus Reticulinasus Schulze, 1941 (family Argasidae Koch, 1844) are ectoparasites of various bat species of the Afrotropic, Australasian, and Oriental regions. Reticulinasus salahi (Hoogstraal, 1953) is the only representative of the genus that occurs in the western part of the Palaearctic. This unusual distribution reflects the home range of its primary host, Rousettus aegyptiacus (Geoffroy, 1810) from the family Pteropodidae. However, the complete summary of available records and a review of the host species, including re-determination of the originally reported hosts and new records, prove that this parasite occurs also in areas exceeding the distribution range of R. aegyptiacus. Besides the primary host, the occurrence was confirmed also on bats of the families Vespertilionidae and Emballonuridae, Otonycteris hemprichii Peters, 1859 and Taphozous perforatus Geoffroy, 1818. Since O. hemprichii and R. aegyptiacus forage in different habitats and also their na...
The Geoffroy’s bat, Myotis emarginatus, is the only species distributed in the Palaearctic belong... more The Geoffroy’s bat, Myotis emarginatus, is the only species distributed in the Palaearctic belonging to the African clade of the genus Myotis. It occurs extensively across several ecologic zones of Europe, north-western Africa, and western and central Asia, and hence it was considered to be a polytypic species. Only one subspecies was reported from Europe and North Africa, up to four subspecies were recognised in Asia. However, the validity of particular taxa as well as the systematic positions of different populations remained ambiguous. Here we present a revision of the intraspecific phylogenetic structure of M. emarginatus based on combination of the available results of a molecular genetic analysis with the results of a thorough morphologic examination of an extensive specimen set from almost the whole range of its distribution. The previously described geographic variability in the mitochondrial markers demonstrated grouping of haplotypes of M. emarginatus into three main linea...
Journal of the National Museum (Prague), Natural History Series
The oldest nomenclatural history of the lesser horseshoe bat (Rhinolophus hipposideros) is summar... more The oldest nomenclatural history of the lesser horseshoe bat (Rhinolophus hipposideros) is summarised and discussed. Our search of literature showed that the author of the species name Rhinolophus hipposideros is André (1797); in the work Der Zoologe, oder Compendiöse Bibliothek des wissenswürdigsten aus der Thiergeschichte und allgemeinen Naturkunde published by 19 April 1797, André (1797: 65) used the name Noctilio Hipposideros and labelled it with “mihi”. André’s (1797) work takes priority over Deutsche Fauna oder kurzgefaßte Naturgeschichte der Thiere Deutschlands by Borkhausen (1797) to which the creation of the name Noctilio Hipposideros has been attributed; the publication date of the latter work for the purposes of zoological nomenclature is 30 September 1797. Revised dating is provided for the second volume of Bechstein’s translation of Pennant’s History of Quadrupeds to which the description of Rhinolophus hipposideros was also formerly assigned: Thomas Pennant’s allgemein...
A list of 1,673 specimens of bats belonging to 36 species, seven genera, and five families of the... more A list of 1,673 specimens of bats belonging to 36 species, seven genera, and five families of the superfamily Rhinolophoidea, housed in the collection of the National Museum, Prague, Czech Republic, is presented in a systematic review.
Journal of the National Museum (Prague), Natural History Series, 2021
František Palacký (1798–1876), a historian and politician, was one of the most eminent personalit... more František Palacký (1798–1876), a historian and politician, was one of the most eminent personalities of the Czech society of the 19th century. He died on 26 May 1876 in Prague and on 30 May 1876, in the evening before the burial, the Palacký’s head was dissected and his brain was extracted and preserved as a liquid preparation. Then, it was deposited in the Museum of the Kingdom of Bohemia (present National Museum) in Prague; currently it is stored in a jar concealed in a wall niche of a column (next to a large statue of Palacký) in the Pantheon hall of the historical building of the National Museum on the Wenceslaus square in Prague. The investigation of the Museum archive brought some documents which elucidate certain parts of the history of the Palacký’s brain preparation, although its whereabouts during other periods still remain hidden. For several years after its extraction, the Palacký’s brain was deposited in the Museum library, and between the years 1878–1899 (most probably...
Journal of the National Museum (Prague), Natural History Series
A complete skeleton of the sperm whale (Physeter macrocephalus) from an animal ca. 13–14 m long i... more A complete skeleton of the sperm whale (Physeter macrocephalus) from an animal ca. 13–14 m long is here reported as a new acquisition to the collection of mammals of the National Museum in Prague. This large new specimen was transferred to Prague museum from the Zoological museum of Senckenberg Natural History Collection Dresden, Germany, where a space enough was not available in the collection depositary rooms for its storage (the skull was stored outdoors, the rest of the skeleton in a taxidermy workshop). The skeleton originates from a stranded individual of the sperm whale discovered (along with two others) on the North Sea shore at Friedrichskoog (Holstein, Germany) on 15 January 2002. Selected measurements of the skull of this sperm whale are as follows: condylobasal length of skull 418 cm, orbital width of skull 196 cm, basal width of rostrum 144 cm, length of left mandible 374 cm, mandible height at the ramus mandibulae 58 cm. An annotated review of museum specimens of the g...
The soft ticks of the genus Reticulinasus Schulze, 1941 (family Argasidae Koch, 1844) are ectopar... more The soft ticks of the genus Reticulinasus Schulze, 1941 (family Argasidae Koch, 1844) are ectoparasites of the fruit bats of the Old World (Pteropodidae). Reticulinasus salahi (Hoogstraal, 1953) is the only representative of this genus that occurs in the western part of the Palaearctic. This unusual distribution reflects the distributon range of its primary host, Rousettus aegyptiacus (Geoffroy, 1810). In this contribution, we present a revised review of records of this tick that were made in two periods, 1951–1966 (records from Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Spain) and 2005–2019 (Cyprus, Iran, Oman), and additionally, we present notes, re-determinations, new records, and summary of hosts of this tick. Besides the primary host, the revised list of hosts comprises two bats (Taphozous perforatus Geoffroy, 1818, Otonycteris hemprichii Peters, 1859) and the human (Homo sapiens Linnaeus, 1758). We also tried to identify pathogens in specimens of this tick collected from R. aegyptiacus in Oman. T...
Specimens of Equus przewalskii in the collection of the National Museum, Prague, Czech Republic (... more Specimens of Equus przewalskii in the collection of the National Museum, Prague, Czech Republic (Perissodactyla: Equidae). A complete list of 50 specimens of the Przewalski’s horse (Equus przewalskii) housed in the collection of the National Museum, Prague, is presented. It consists of two complete skeletons, twelve partial skeletons, 20 skins (two of them mounted), and 40 skulls.
Bats of four islands of the Dodecanese Archipelago (Astypalea, Kalymnos, Symi, Megisti) were stud... more Bats of four islands of the Dodecanese Archipelago (Astypalea, Kalymnos, Symi, Megisti) were studied for the first time. The bat fauna of these islands comprises eleven species and the faunas of the particular islands are composed of five (on Astypalea) to nine (on Symi) species. Three species of bats, Rhinolophus blasii, Pipistrellus pipistrellus and P. kuhlii, were found in all four islands, two species, Hypsugo savii and Tadarida teniotis in three islands, and Eptesicus anatolicus and Plecotus kolombatovici in two islands. The remaining four species, Rhinolophus ferrumequinum, Myotis blythii, M. emarginatus, and Miniopterus schreibersii, are known from only one island each.
Fourteen specimens of the small-sized representatives of the genus Rhinolophus (all originally id... more Fourteen specimens of the small-sized representatives of the genus Rhinolophus (all originally identified as R. hipposideros) originating in West Turkestan were found in the mammal collection of the Zoological Museum of the Moscow State University (ZMMU) and examined for potential presence of Rhinolopus lepidus. The examination showed two species within this set of specimens, five R. hipposideros (from Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan) and nine R. lepidus (coming from Uzbekistan, Kirghizstan and Tajikistan). This revision brought four new locality records of R. lepidus from West Turkestan, now known from this region from nine sites in total. Two ZMMU records from Uzbekistan newly delimited the northern and western margins of the known distribution range of this bat in West Turkestan, shifting the northern margin by some 150 km further to the north (Ugom river valley in the Tian Shan Mts., ca. 41° 43’ N) and the western margin by ca. 30 km to the west (Sentâb in the Nuratau Mt...
A complete list of bat records available from Northern Cyprus is presented, based on both limited... more A complete list of bat records available from Northern Cyprus is presented, based on both limited literature and new records, resulting from a recent field survey conducted mainly in 2018. This review is complemented by distribution maps and summaries of the distributional status of particular species. From the northern part of the island of Cyprus, at least 451 records of 21 bat species are available; viz. Rousettus aegyptiacus (26 record localities), Rhinolophus ferrumequinum (19), R. hipposideros (21), R. euryale (5), R. mehelyi (1), R. blasii (12), Myotis blythii (4), M. nattereri (10), M. emarginatus (3), M. capaccinii (1), Eptesicus serotinus (5), E. anatolicus (1), Hypsugo savii (6), Pipistrellus pipistrellus (50), P. pygmaeus (9), P. kuhlii (265), Nyctalus leisleri (1), N. lasiopterus (1), Plecotus kolombatovici (3), Miniopterus schreibersii (4), and Tadarida teniotis (5). The number of records increased elevenfold and 1.5 times more bat species were found compared to the la...
The paper presents results of a first attempt to survey bats of the Alatish National Park (northw... more The paper presents results of a first attempt to survey bats of the Alatish National Park (northwestern Ethiopia). Twenty-one bat species belonging to eight families and twelve genera were documented for the first time in the Park, at least two bat species (Hipposideros abae, Pipistrellus nanulus) were found new for the fauna of Ethiopia. The Alatish National Park is an area of high conservation value due to its high bat species diversity and a complex structure of the fauna including elements with various zoogeographic affinities.
The bat fauna of United Arab Emirates (UAE) has so far received very little attention. This pape... more The bat fauna of United Arab Emirates (UAE) has so far received very little attention. This paper presents a review of published records and voucher specimens in museum collections. We reviewed 39 references and identified 116 records concerning nine species belonging to five families. Fifteen of these records mention 71 specimens of six species in collections. Distribution maps of known locations are provided for each species. Most records (70%) date back more than 10 years and two species have not been recorded for more than 40 years. Based on the bat fauna of Oman, a more thoroughly investigated neighbouring country, the presence of at least nine other, still unrecorded, species is expected. The status of bats in UAE and their conservation concerns are discussed. We encourage further field studies of the bat fauna of UAE.
A list of 139 specimens of bats belonging to 32 species of eight families originating from Zambia... more A list of 139 specimens of bats belonging to 32 species of eight families originating from Zambia, housed in the collection of the National Museum, Prague, Czech Republic, is presented in a systematical review. The species lists are complemented by comments on distribution and morphometry data. The specimens represent 73 new records (species vs. locality) of bats from Zambia. The collection contains two species new for the Zambian fauna, Afropipistrellus grandidieri and Neoromicia somalica. Two species, Rhinolophus sakejiensis and Chaerephon bivittatus are documented for the second time from Zambia, the former bat for the first time after the species description at all. The record localities of Epomophorus labiatus, Rhinolophus mossambicus, and Neoromicia somalica shift margins of the whole known distribution ranges of these bats. In Epomophorus dobsonii, Nyctinomus aegyptiacus, Glauconycteris variegata, Pipistrellus rusticus, Scotophilus leucogaster, and S. viridis, the collection ...
The soft ticks of the genus Reticulinasus Schulze, 1941 (family Argasidae Koch, 1844) are ectopar... more The soft ticks of the genus Reticulinasus Schulze, 1941 (family Argasidae Koch, 1844) are ectoparasites of various bat species of the Afrotropic, Australasian, and Oriental regions. Reticulinasus salahi (Hoogstraal, 1953) is the only representative of the genus that occurs in the western part of the Palaearctic. This unusual distribution reflects the home range of its primary host, Rousettus aegyptiacus (Geoffroy, 1810) from the family Pteropodidae. However, the complete summary of available records and a review of the host species, including re-determination of the originally reported hosts and new records, prove that this parasite occurs also in areas exceeding the distribution range of R. aegyptiacus. Besides the primary host, the occurrence was confirmed also on bats of the families Vespertilionidae and Emballonuridae, Otonycteris hemprichii Peters, 1859 and Taphozous perforatus Geoffroy, 1818. Since O. hemprichii and R. aegyptiacus forage in different habitats and also their na...
The Geoffroy’s bat, Myotis emarginatus, is the only species distributed in the Palaearctic belong... more The Geoffroy’s bat, Myotis emarginatus, is the only species distributed in the Palaearctic belonging to the African clade of the genus Myotis. It occurs extensively across several ecologic zones of Europe, north-western Africa, and western and central Asia, and hence it was considered to be a polytypic species. Only one subspecies was reported from Europe and North Africa, up to four subspecies were recognised in Asia. However, the validity of particular taxa as well as the systematic positions of different populations remained ambiguous. Here we present a revision of the intraspecific phylogenetic structure of M. emarginatus based on combination of the available results of a molecular genetic analysis with the results of a thorough morphologic examination of an extensive specimen set from almost the whole range of its distribution. The previously described geographic variability in the mitochondrial markers demonstrated grouping of haplotypes of M. emarginatus into three main linea...
Journal of the National Museum (Prague), Natural History Series
The oldest nomenclatural history of the lesser horseshoe bat (Rhinolophus hipposideros) is summar... more The oldest nomenclatural history of the lesser horseshoe bat (Rhinolophus hipposideros) is summarised and discussed. Our search of literature showed that the author of the species name Rhinolophus hipposideros is André (1797); in the work Der Zoologe, oder Compendiöse Bibliothek des wissenswürdigsten aus der Thiergeschichte und allgemeinen Naturkunde published by 19 April 1797, André (1797: 65) used the name Noctilio Hipposideros and labelled it with “mihi”. André’s (1797) work takes priority over Deutsche Fauna oder kurzgefaßte Naturgeschichte der Thiere Deutschlands by Borkhausen (1797) to which the creation of the name Noctilio Hipposideros has been attributed; the publication date of the latter work for the purposes of zoological nomenclature is 30 September 1797. Revised dating is provided for the second volume of Bechstein’s translation of Pennant’s History of Quadrupeds to which the description of Rhinolophus hipposideros was also formerly assigned: Thomas Pennant’s allgemein...
A list of 1,673 specimens of bats belonging to 36 species, seven genera, and five families of the... more A list of 1,673 specimens of bats belonging to 36 species, seven genera, and five families of the superfamily Rhinolophoidea, housed in the collection of the National Museum, Prague, Czech Republic, is presented in a systematic review.
Journal of the National Museum (Prague), Natural History Series, 2021
František Palacký (1798–1876), a historian and politician, was one of the most eminent personalit... more František Palacký (1798–1876), a historian and politician, was one of the most eminent personalities of the Czech society of the 19th century. He died on 26 May 1876 in Prague and on 30 May 1876, in the evening before the burial, the Palacký’s head was dissected and his brain was extracted and preserved as a liquid preparation. Then, it was deposited in the Museum of the Kingdom of Bohemia (present National Museum) in Prague; currently it is stored in a jar concealed in a wall niche of a column (next to a large statue of Palacký) in the Pantheon hall of the historical building of the National Museum on the Wenceslaus square in Prague. The investigation of the Museum archive brought some documents which elucidate certain parts of the history of the Palacký’s brain preparation, although its whereabouts during other periods still remain hidden. For several years after its extraction, the Palacký’s brain was deposited in the Museum library, and between the years 1878–1899 (most probably...
Journal of the National Museum (Prague), Natural History Series
A complete skeleton of the sperm whale (Physeter macrocephalus) from an animal ca. 13–14 m long i... more A complete skeleton of the sperm whale (Physeter macrocephalus) from an animal ca. 13–14 m long is here reported as a new acquisition to the collection of mammals of the National Museum in Prague. This large new specimen was transferred to Prague museum from the Zoological museum of Senckenberg Natural History Collection Dresden, Germany, where a space enough was not available in the collection depositary rooms for its storage (the skull was stored outdoors, the rest of the skeleton in a taxidermy workshop). The skeleton originates from a stranded individual of the sperm whale discovered (along with two others) on the North Sea shore at Friedrichskoog (Holstein, Germany) on 15 January 2002. Selected measurements of the skull of this sperm whale are as follows: condylobasal length of skull 418 cm, orbital width of skull 196 cm, basal width of rostrum 144 cm, length of left mandible 374 cm, mandible height at the ramus mandibulae 58 cm. An annotated review of museum specimens of the g...
The soft ticks of the genus Reticulinasus Schulze, 1941 (family Argasidae Koch, 1844) are ectopar... more The soft ticks of the genus Reticulinasus Schulze, 1941 (family Argasidae Koch, 1844) are ectoparasites of the fruit bats of the Old World (Pteropodidae). Reticulinasus salahi (Hoogstraal, 1953) is the only representative of this genus that occurs in the western part of the Palaearctic. This unusual distribution reflects the distributon range of its primary host, Rousettus aegyptiacus (Geoffroy, 1810). In this contribution, we present a revised review of records of this tick that were made in two periods, 1951–1966 (records from Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Spain) and 2005–2019 (Cyprus, Iran, Oman), and additionally, we present notes, re-determinations, new records, and summary of hosts of this tick. Besides the primary host, the revised list of hosts comprises two bats (Taphozous perforatus Geoffroy, 1818, Otonycteris hemprichii Peters, 1859) and the human (Homo sapiens Linnaeus, 1758). We also tried to identify pathogens in specimens of this tick collected from R. aegyptiacus in Oman. T...
Specimens of Equus przewalskii in the collection of the National Museum, Prague, Czech Republic (... more Specimens of Equus przewalskii in the collection of the National Museum, Prague, Czech Republic (Perissodactyla: Equidae). A complete list of 50 specimens of the Przewalski’s horse (Equus przewalskii) housed in the collection of the National Museum, Prague, is presented. It consists of two complete skeletons, twelve partial skeletons, 20 skins (two of them mounted), and 40 skulls.
Bats of four islands of the Dodecanese Archipelago (Astypalea, Kalymnos, Symi, Megisti) were stud... more Bats of four islands of the Dodecanese Archipelago (Astypalea, Kalymnos, Symi, Megisti) were studied for the first time. The bat fauna of these islands comprises eleven species and the faunas of the particular islands are composed of five (on Astypalea) to nine (on Symi) species. Three species of bats, Rhinolophus blasii, Pipistrellus pipistrellus and P. kuhlii, were found in all four islands, two species, Hypsugo savii and Tadarida teniotis in three islands, and Eptesicus anatolicus and Plecotus kolombatovici in two islands. The remaining four species, Rhinolophus ferrumequinum, Myotis blythii, M. emarginatus, and Miniopterus schreibersii, are known from only one island each.
Fourteen specimens of the small-sized representatives of the genus Rhinolophus (all originally id... more Fourteen specimens of the small-sized representatives of the genus Rhinolophus (all originally identified as R. hipposideros) originating in West Turkestan were found in the mammal collection of the Zoological Museum of the Moscow State University (ZMMU) and examined for potential presence of Rhinolopus lepidus. The examination showed two species within this set of specimens, five R. hipposideros (from Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan) and nine R. lepidus (coming from Uzbekistan, Kirghizstan and Tajikistan). This revision brought four new locality records of R. lepidus from West Turkestan, now known from this region from nine sites in total. Two ZMMU records from Uzbekistan newly delimited the northern and western margins of the known distribution range of this bat in West Turkestan, shifting the northern margin by some 150 km further to the north (Ugom river valley in the Tian Shan Mts., ca. 41° 43’ N) and the western margin by ca. 30 km to the west (Sentâb in the Nuratau Mt...
A complete list of bat records available from Northern Cyprus is presented, based on both limited... more A complete list of bat records available from Northern Cyprus is presented, based on both limited literature and new records, resulting from a recent field survey conducted mainly in 2018. This review is complemented by distribution maps and summaries of the distributional status of particular species. From the northern part of the island of Cyprus, at least 451 records of 21 bat species are available; viz. Rousettus aegyptiacus (26 record localities), Rhinolophus ferrumequinum (19), R. hipposideros (21), R. euryale (5), R. mehelyi (1), R. blasii (12), Myotis blythii (4), M. nattereri (10), M. emarginatus (3), M. capaccinii (1), Eptesicus serotinus (5), E. anatolicus (1), Hypsugo savii (6), Pipistrellus pipistrellus (50), P. pygmaeus (9), P. kuhlii (265), Nyctalus leisleri (1), N. lasiopterus (1), Plecotus kolombatovici (3), Miniopterus schreibersii (4), and Tadarida teniotis (5). The number of records increased elevenfold and 1.5 times more bat species were found compared to the la...
The paper presents results of a first attempt to survey bats of the Alatish National Park (northw... more The paper presents results of a first attempt to survey bats of the Alatish National Park (northwestern Ethiopia). Twenty-one bat species belonging to eight families and twelve genera were documented for the first time in the Park, at least two bat species (Hipposideros abae, Pipistrellus nanulus) were found new for the fauna of Ethiopia. The Alatish National Park is an area of high conservation value due to its high bat species diversity and a complex structure of the fauna including elements with various zoogeographic affinities.
The bat fauna of United Arab Emirates (UAE) has so far received very little attention. This pape... more The bat fauna of United Arab Emirates (UAE) has so far received very little attention. This paper presents a review of published records and voucher specimens in museum collections. We reviewed 39 references and identified 116 records concerning nine species belonging to five families. Fifteen of these records mention 71 specimens of six species in collections. Distribution maps of known locations are provided for each species. Most records (70%) date back more than 10 years and two species have not been recorded for more than 40 years. Based on the bat fauna of Oman, a more thoroughly investigated neighbouring country, the presence of at least nine other, still unrecorded, species is expected. The status of bats in UAE and their conservation concerns are discussed. We encourage further field studies of the bat fauna of UAE.
Uploads
Papers