Check List 21(3): 506-514, doi: 10.15560/21.3.506
New altitudinal record of Myotis moratellii Novaes et al., 2021 (Chiroptera, Vespertilionidae) in the northwestern foothills of Ecuador
Francisco X. Castellanos‡§, Laura Simba§|, Jorge Brito§‡ Texas Tech University, Lubbock, United States of America§ Instituto Nacional de Biodiversidad, Quito, Ecuador| Universidad Central del Ecuador, Quito, Ecuador
Corresponding author: Francisco X. Castellanos ( xacfran@gmail.com ) Academic editor: Héctor Ramírez-Chaves © Francisco X. Castellanos, Laura Simba, Jorge Brito. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Citation:
Castellanos FX, Simba L, Brito J (2025) New altitudinal record of Myotis moratellii Novaes et al., 2021 (Chiroptera, Vespertilionidae) in the northwestern foothills of Ecuador. Check List 21(3): 506-514. https://doi.org/10.15560/21.3.506 |  |
Abstract
Myotis moratellii Novaes et al., 2021 is a bat species that inhabits western Ecuador at low elevations (0–150 m a.s.l.). This study extends its northern distribution by 63 km into the foothill rainforests of the Chocó in Imbabura Province at 1,240 m a.s.l. Given the novel color patterns observed in the specimens collected, molecular approaches were necessary for species-level identification. Although the cause of this variation remains unclear, continued integrative taxonomy is critical to uncover the cryptic diversity within the genus.
Keywords
Chocó, color variation, cryptic diversity, cytochrome b, distribution, elevation, premontane forest