The Beijing mouse-eared bat, or Peking myotis (''Myotis pequinius'') is a species of
vesper bat
Vespertilionidae is a family of microbats, of the order Chiroptera, flying, insect-eating mammals variously described as the common, vesper, or simple nosed bats. The vespertilionid family is the most diverse and widely distributed of bat familie ...
. It is found only in
China
China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...
.
Taxonomy
It was described as a new species in 1908 by British zoologist
Oldfield Thomas
Michael Rogers Oldfield Thomas (21 February 1858 – 16 June 1929) was a British zoologist.
Career
Thomas worked at the Natural History Museum on mammals, describing about 2,000 new species and subspecies for the first time. He was appoin ...
.
The
holotype
A holotype is a single physical example (or illustration) of an organism, known to have been used when the species (or lower-ranked taxon) was formally described. It is either the single such physical example (or illustration) or one of several ...
had been collected by
Malcolm Playfair Anderson
Malcolm Playfair Anderson (6 April 1879 – 21 February 1919) was an American zoologist and explorer. Anderson took part in several scientific expeditions, and was chosen in 1904 to lead the Duke of Bedford's Exploration of Eastern Asia.
Ea ...
in 1907.
Anderson encountered the species in a cave west of
Beijing
}
Beijing ( ; ; ), alternatively romanized as Peking ( ), is the capital of the People's Republic of China. It is the center of power and development of the country. Beijing is the world's most populous national capital city, with over 21 ...
.
Description
It is a relatively large mouse-eared bat with a forearm length of .
Its fur is short and velvety, with the fur on its back a gray, reddish-brown.
In contrast, its belly fur is off-white.
Biology and ecology
It is
insectivorous
A robber fly eating a hoverfly
An insectivore is a carnivorous animal or plant that eats insects. An alternative term is entomophage, which can also refer to the human practice of eating insects.
The first vertebrate insectivores were ...
, consuming mostly
beetle
Beetles are insects that form the order Coleoptera (), in the superorder Endopterygota. Their front pair of wings are hardened into wing-cases, elytra, distinguishing them from most other insects. The Coleoptera, with about 400,000 describ ...
s.
During the day, individuals roost in
cave
A cave or cavern is a natural void in the ground, specifically a space large enough for a human to enter. Caves often form by the weathering of rock and often extend deep underground. The word ''cave'' can refer to smaller openings such as sea ...
s, though they may also roost in human structures.
Range and habitat
The Beijing mouse-eared bat is
endemic
Endemism is the state of a species being found in a single defined geographic location, such as an island, state, nation, country or other defined zone; organisms that are indigenous to a place are not endemic to it if they are also found elsew ...
to
China
China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...
, where it is found in the provinces of
Anhui
Anhui , (; formerly romanized as Anhwei) is a landlocked province of the People's Republic of China, part of the East China region. Its provincial capital and largest city is Hefei. The province is located across the basins of the Yangtze River ...
Shanxi
Shanxi (; ; formerly romanised as Shansi) is a landlocked province of the People's Republic of China and is part of the North China region. The capital and largest city of the province is Taiyuan, while its next most populated prefecture-lev ...
IUCN
The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN; officially International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources) is an international organization working in the field of nature conservation and sustainable use of natu ...
.
It meets the criteria for this classification because its extent of occurrence exceeds ; its population is presumably large; and it is unlikely to be experiencing rapid population decline.