First Records Of The Eastern Red Bat (Lasiurus Borealis) In Arizona, Utah, And Western New Mexico

This dataset contains the digitized treatments in Plazi based on the original journal article Geluso, Keith, Valdez, Ernest W. (2019): First Records Of The Eastern Red Bat (Lasiurus Borealis) In Arizona, Utah, And Western New Mexico. Occasional Papers of the Museum 361: 1-14, DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.15832263ABSTRACTThe red bat once was considered a single species with two subspecies in the United States. This taxon now is split into the Eastern Red Bat (Lasiurus borealis) and Western Red Bat (Lasiurus frantzii, formerly L. blossevillii). Due to generally perceived non-overlapping ranges in the United States and Canada, researchers likely have relied on distribution for identification of these similar-appearing migratory species. This study examined red bat specimens housed at the Museum of Southwestern Biology (University of New Mexico, Albuquerque) as well as a few other specimens in natural history museums from the southwestern United States. Herein, the first state records of Eastern Red Bats are reported from Arizona and Utah, as well as the westernmost record from New Mexico. Such records extend the known distribution of Eastern Red Bats farther west then previously recognized in the southwestern United States. In contrast, the seeming distribution for Western Red Bats is reduced in Utah by our findings. Identification of a red bat from south-central New Mexico was reexamined for which identification has been in question for years. To assist researchers, an external morphological difference in fur coloration was described herein to aid in the identification of these two species in the future. Our study brings into question the identification of red bats formerly captured in the western United States, as our “new” records from Utah were collected in 1937 and 1991, and the “new” record from Arizona was from 1954. All red bats, including recent captures and museum specimens, from west of the Rocky Mountains need to be examined closely in light of our findings. Recognizing how to identify these similar species will allow researchers to better understand their distribution, abundance, and migratory patterns, as well as provide better accuracy in call libraries for acoustic monitoring.Key words: Arizona, distribution, Eastern Red Bat, Lasiurus frantzii, Lasiurus blossevillii, Lasiurus borealis, migratory, New Mexico, state record, Western Red Bat, Utah

Récupéré en direct depuis OpenAlex et désinversé. Les résumés ne sont pas conservés dans cette base de données : les index inversés représentent 8,6 Go des 9,3 Go de texte de la base, et le serveur dispose de 13 Go libres.