The 3rd edition of Mammal Species of the World, the authoritative volume on mammal species diversity and taxonomy, was published in 2005 by editors Don Wilson and DeAnn Reeder. Since then, the Chiroptera chapter, written by Nancy Simmons, has been cited over 2000 times, 141 times in 2017 alone (Simmons, 2005; accessible online here). This is remarkable, particularly since there have been major changes to chiropteran taxonomy annually. Notable changes to bat taxonomy include a reorganization of Chiroptera at the subordinal level, now the accepted consensus view, which receives overwhelming support from diverse molecular data sets. Microchiroptera, the group traditionally recognized as including all echolocating bats, is not monophyletic; instead, Rhinolophoidea appears as the sister taxon of Pteropodidae in recent phylogenetic analyses (see these entries in the database), necessitating a major reorganization of chiropteran taxonomy at the highest levels. As data from multiple genes sampled in multiple families have accumulated, higher-level relationships of bats have largely stabilized. We now feel confident in recognizing superfamilies, which was avoided in 2005 due to uncertainty regarding higher-level taxonomy at that time. Three new families have also been recognized, and more than 5 new genera have been described. Additionally, more than 175 species previously unknown to science have been described, and an additional 120 species have been raised from synonymy since 2005. We began updating the list of valid bat species as soon as Simmons (2005) was published for our own work and as an aid to colleagues. However, we kept this list as an Excel file, making it difficult to use and largely inaccessible to other researchers. By 2015, the 10th anniversary of publication of the last print edition of Mammal Species of the World, an update was critical. At that time we decided that our list needed to be fully revised and made accessible on the web. This process began in 2016 with the creation of a relational mySQL database to replace the cumbersome Excel file and begin the process of creating a web accessible list. In 2017, the IUCN SSC Bat Specialist Group formed a Global Bat Taxonomy Working Group to discuss how the the web-based version of our bat taxonomy database might be used by the taxonomic community and to plan for its continuation under the auspices of the global chiropteran taxonomic community. The task of constructing a database, updating species accounts, populating the database with new fields, and creating a functional website has proven more challenging than we initially anticipated. Consequently, we are releasing our species list in stages while we continue to work on fully reviewing species accounts. Our hope is that this will be of assistance to our colleagues worldwide, but will also improve our ability disseminate full updates by enlisting the help of the taxonomic community.
We invite researchers to submit publications including range extensions, taxonomic revisions, and descriptions of new taxa directly to us. Currently, submission is via our email, but eventually submission will be via the web form on the home page of this site. Note that submitted papers are not placed online on the site, but links are provided via references at the end of each relevant taxonomic entry. See the "Best Practices" page to understand the criteria we use in assessing the strength of research conclusions. To submit, please email a PDF of your paper to: acirranello@batnames.org.
Please cite the database. Citing the database allows us to know how it is being used and who is using it. There is currently no financial support for this project so justification for its continued existence comes through usage. The citation appears on the footer on all web pages, but should read: Simmons, N.B. and A.L. Cirranello. 2018. Bat Species of the World: A taxonomic and geographic database. Accession date.
Once all the original entries have been revised, we plan to update the website biannually (April and October).
Time period
This list is limited to extant or recently extinct species (e.g., within the last 500 years), an arbitrarily selected time span. Recent extinctions are noted in the "Comments" section.
Taxonomic arrangement
Taxonomy is ever changing, hence each iteration of the database should be considered a hypothesis of bat diversity that is current at the time of posting. New species
are described every few weeks, and generic and higher-level revisions are published every few months. Accordingly, chiropteran taxonomy is an ever-shifting landscape.
However, new techniques and new samples are producing increased consensus regarding large-scale patterns within the Order. Most notably, our understanding of
chiropteran higher-level taxonomy has undergone a dramatic shift in the last couple of decades. Simmons (2005) recognized taxa at the level of suborders, families,
subfamilies, genera, subgenera, species, and subspecies. Today, we additionally recognize superfamilies, tribes, and subtribes in recognition of the increased
stability of chiropteran taxonomy above the species level.
The basis for the current database is the classification Simmons (2005), which itself built on the work of Koopman (1983, 1993, 1994). Our aim is to continue leverage
this previous work and make all necessary changes to best reflect the current state of taxonomic and phylogenetic knowledge, and to provide an entree into the
literature for each taxon. The "Comments" section of each account in our database notes departures from the arrangement of Simmons (2005), as well as providing pertinent
references that support or refute our taxonomic arrangement (see the "Best Practices"page).
A hierarchical taxonomic arrangement from order to subfamily is available on the "Explore" page. On the "Explore" page, generic names are currently listed
alphabetically within higher level taxa. Generic names on the "Explore" page are links to the appropriate genus and included species accounts. Within genera,
species are always listed in alphabetical order. Subgenera and subspecies are currently noted in the generic and species accounts in the "Comments" section.
Valid subspecies (when recognized) are also listed in boldface within the "Synonyms" section of species accounts (see "Synonyms" below).
To search by country, conservation status or taxon, enter a term in the search bar on the "Home" page.
Website arrangment
A hierachical taxonomic arrangment of order to family is available on the explore page.
Entries
The "Explore" page includes entries from order to subfamily. Tribes and subtribes do not have separate entries at this time, but are noted within the relevant subfamily account. All entries on the "Explore" page have been fully revised as of 12/1/2018.
Generic and species entries are accessed by searching via the home page or clicking the generic link on the explore page. Currently, there are two types of generic and species entries in the database:
Short entries
Short entries are provided for taxa whose original database entries from Simmons (2005) have not yet been fully revised.
The short entry for the genus includes a link to the family entry on the "Explore" page, the genus name, authority, citation, and type species:
The short entry for the species includes the species name, authority, citation, and common name:
Long entries
A long entry indicates that the account has been fully revised.
Long entries for the genus include a link to the family entry on the "Explore" page, the genus name, authority, citation, type species, synonyms (when applicable),
comments (when applicable), and references:
Long entries for the species include the name, authority, citation, common name, original name combination (when applicable), synonyms (when applicable), type locality, distribution, map, status, comments (when applicable), and references:
Scientific name and authority
Valid scientific names are each listed followed by the author of the name and the date in which the taxon was described, for example, Vampyrun spectrum (Linnaeus, 1758). Parentheses surrounding the author name indicate that the species was transferred from the genus in which it was initially described. In this case, Linnaeus originally placed the bat with the species epithet spectrum in the genus Vespertilio, hence the original name combination was Vespertilio spectrum Linnaeus, 1758.
Each account also includes the citation for the work in which the name was published. We list the first page on which the species name appears (excluding abstracts), but in some cases reference is made to plates, footnotes, or figures. In many cases for older literature, the date listed for publication was not the actual date the text was published, which is important for establishing the priority of scientific names. Consequently, we give the actual date of publication in brackets when this differs from the date stated in the text.
Naming follows the conventions established in the latest edition of the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature (4th edition, 1999 and Amendment, 2012). Family level taxa (above genus, to superfamily thus, superfamily, family, subfamily, tribe, subtribe) follow the principles outline in Article 35 (establishing the family group) and article 36 (establishing the principle of coordination). All generic accounts list the type species for which the generic name was proposed. Should the generic name that was originally used no longer be valid, the species with which it is currently synonymized is given in parentheses in its original form with its authority, following the original type species.
Common name
Common names are not governed by formal rules and vary across countries. We give common names for families, subfamilies, and species.
The common names given here (in English only), follow those from Simmons (2005), which in turn was based on Wilson and Cole (2000), with some modifications.
We have changed common names when appropriate to avoid confusion when species have been transferred from one genus to another. In many cases, authors of newly
described species have listed preferred common names and we typically use these when given. When a common name has not been proposed for a newly described species, we
provide an appropriate common name based on the etymology of the species name or using the type locality. All names hyphenate adjectival forms (e.g., Free-tailed Bat),
but do not hyphenate nouns.
Type locality
The type locality is the geographical location where the type material (skin, skeleton, fluid preserved specimen or other material) was collected. In addition, we
provide latitude, longitude, and elevation above sea level in all long species entries. Restrictions of the type locality made by revisers are included in the "Type
locality" or "Comments" sections.
Distribution
We summarize the range of the species using country names and states, when applicable. When a species is known only from the type locality, we note this under
the "Distribution" section. All text accounts use current official "short forms" of the country names given by the US Department of State as of May 30, 2018. These short-form
names are also used as the country names in the database, and they are searchable. At this time, we do not include pertinent literature for distribution in the
references for each account unless we make specific reference to a work in the "Comments" section.
Map
The current maps that accompany the full species accounts are drawn from both the GBIF and IUCN websites, unless otherwise indicated. Point widths on these maps do not represent the exact location and distance covered in the observation.
Records are clustered when they overlap at a specific point location (indicated by a green circle with the numbered of clustered records that does not expand unpon zoom); expanding the cluster by clicking neccessarily displaces the records.
GBIF data has been pulled from the GBIF database directly through QGIS only for those records that have latitude and longitude as separate coordinate fields. Some records have coordinates as a single field and it was outside the scope of this project to convert these to separate latitude and longitude fields. As a consequence, some GBIF maps may have data points that do not appear in our maps. Dates for each of these downloads - as well as those from the IUCN database - are available on request. Note that additional data fields are available for records from both the GBIF and IUCN databases. We choose to use
those that seemed most relevant, but consulting GBIF via the GBIF key or IUCN via the date of publication and species name will allow those interested to examine all fields.
When a species has been recently split via elevating some or all subspecies to species rank (e.g., Pteronotus parnellii), the map for resulting species is drawn
from the subspecies account(s) whenever possible. In some cases, no records are available on the GBIF or IUCN websites for a taxon (and the map will appear empty), or a taxon
simply does not yet exist in the GBIF or IUCN database (and the map is a default). The GBIF maps are based on uploaded accounts from researchers as well as data drawn directly
from crawling the web. None of these records have been validated according to current species concepts (that is, records from museums may predate revisions to genera
or species), many have never been vetted at all (i.e., original identifications may be inaccurate) nor have these data been curated by us in any way. Thus it is
possible for there to be wildy inaccurate points included in mapped species ranges that do not match our stated distribution limits. Similarly, IUCN polygons may be out of date,
depending on when the last revision to the range map occurred and any taxonomic changes that have happened since that time. IUCN polygons for a species may include range data from
subspecies that have been raised to full species status, or may not include species range data for those that have been sunk. Consequently, these maps should be taken as simply
a graphical representation of the text distribution.
Status
The conservation status for each bat species is reported based upon listings of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and
Flora (CITES) and the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources Redlist (here cited "IUCN"). IUCN status is provided in each long account
with the date of the latest assessment. Note that we use the term "under" when the status of a species was not directly considered, but it was recognized as part of
another taxonomic unit when the assessment was made.
Two IUCN/SSC Action Plans, although both more than two decades old, provide more detailed information for most species, and we refer readers to them for more
information. The Action Plan for Old World Fruit Bats (Pteropodidae; cited below as "SSC Action Plan, 2001", compiled by Hutson et al. 2001) remains a valuable source
for detailed information on the conservation status of subspecies as well as species of pteropodids, including the status of taxa not thought to be at risk. This
publication summarizes considerable information on ecology and population biology of pteropodids. The conservation status of other families of bats was assessed
slightly more recently in the Global Status Survey and Conservation Action Plan for Microchiropteran Bats (cited below as SSC Action Plan [2001], compiled by Hutson
et al. 2001). This work summarized the status of each microchiropteran (= non-pteropodid) species recognized by Koopman (1993) as well as many additional species
described or revised between 1993 and 2001. Threat categories listed in this work are identical to those found in the IUCN 2000 and 2003 Red lists, but additional
regional and taxon-specific conservation status information is included. Both Action Plans require substantial revision, but are nevertheless informative.
Here, we include more than 500 species that were not listed in Koopman (1993). Some are new species previously described over the last two decades, but many others
were previously considered subspecies of other taxa. The majority of these newly recognized species have restricted geographic ranges, and may therefore be at risk.
In addition, many long-recognized species with broad geographic ranges have been restricted, both taxonomically and geographically, as subspecies and cryptic species
are recognized in their own right. The conservation status of these species also requires evaluation.
Synonyms
We provide a list of synonyms for all taxa from order to species. These may be names with more recent publication dates that refer to an already-named taxon
(junior synonyms), or names that are invalid for some reason (e.g., nomina nuda). Note that we do not include emendations, misspellings, incorrect allocations, and
partial synonyms in our lists of synonyms, although some of these are discussed under the "Comments" section for some taxa where relevant. At the present time, synonyms do not
have full citations in the "References" section, but the authority information (name and date of publication) is included for each synonym. We are aware that locating
these works can be difficult and we are working to link synonyms to their sources.
At the beginning of each "Synonyms" account for a species, the junior synonyms of the nominate form (if any) are listed. Junior synonyms appear in plain font.
If there are valid subspecies, these are given in bold font. Junior synonyms of a valid subspecies follow the bold face subspecies entry, again in plain font.
Absence of a "Synonyms" section indicates that there are none for a particular taxon.
Comments
We have made every effort to refer to the latest pertinent literature including works that both support or refute the taxonomic decisions expressed here. Older
literature may not appear in the accounts, as we are not trying to provide a full literature review for every name. We generally try to avoid referring to secondary
sources. We do provide opinions and make reference to personal communication when needed. ICZN opinions, revisions, distributional notes, and any additional literature
sources that provide important perspective are mentioned in the "Comments" section.
References
All references in the "Comments" section as well as the authority are included at the end of the account and, where possible, we provide a direct link to the work.
Links are back to the original publisher's website in all cases, unless the work is in the public domain. In that case we link to the paper via the Biodiversity
Heritage Library or other resource when the work is not available on their site.