Abstract. In 1966, Robert William Hayman, Xavier Misonne and Walter Verheyen published their listing of the Congolese, Rwandan and Burundian bat specimens in the collections in the museums of Tervuren, Brussels, Geneva, London and New York. In the fifty years that have passed since, some major changes have been introduced in the taxonomy of the Chiroptera: new species have been discovered, species have been split off, species have been moved to other genera, and additional material has been collected. We re-evaluated the data presented by Hayman et al., and supplemented this with specimen records found in the literature and in online catalogs. This resulted in 136 species, represented by 20 231 specimens (compared to 113 species and 8567 specimens originally). When available, we also recorded additional information such as locality, sex and age, collector, collection date and preservation type of the voucher specimen. The distribution maps of the Congolese taxa are revised to represent the current taxonomy, and are presented in perspective against the taxon's Species Distribution Model to assess species distribution on the African continent. Additionally, an updated key to the various taxa is presented.
Haemosporidia parasites have mostly and abundantly been described using mitochondrial genes, and in particular cytochrome b (cytb). Failure to amplify the mitochondrial cytb gene of Nycteria parasites isolated from Nycteridae bats has been recently reported. Bats are hosts to a diverse and profuse array of Haemosporidia parasites that remain largely unstudied. There is a need to obtain more molecular data from chiropteran parasites. Such data would help to better understand the evolutionary history of Haemosporidia, which notably include the Plasmodium parasites, malaria’s agents. We use next-generation sequencing to obtain the complete mitochondrial genome of Nycteria parasites from African Nycteris grandis (Nycteridae) and Rhinolophus alcyone (Rhinolophidae) and Asian Megaderma spasma (Megadermatidae). We report four complete mitochondrial genomes, including two rearranged mitochondrial genomes within Haemosporidia. Our results open outlooks into potentially undiscovered Haemosporidian diversity.
We report the rediscovery of the pied butterfly bat, Glauconycteris superba Hayman, 1939, 40 years after this species was last recorded. The new specimen from Mbiye Island, Democratic Republic of the Congo, is compared with the type specimens of G. s. superba and G. superba sheila Hayman, 1947 and a specimen from Matonguiné, Ivory Coast. The variation in the striking colouration of the pelage as well as in morphometric data is considered to be individual rather than geographic variation and we tentatively regard G. s. sheila as a synonym of the nominate form. Despite the wide distribution of this species in the tropical forest zone of West and Central Africa, only four specimens from four localities are known to date, which might indicate very specific habitat preferences. Contemporary land cover information around historic collection sites shows degraded landscapes. Given the highly uncertain area of occupancy of this species, we suggest changing the status of G. superba in the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species from "Least Concern" to "Data Deficient"
Ce travail présente les résultats d’une méta-analyse de quatre études menées sur les Amphibiens à Kasugho, Butembo, Mambasa et Kisangani en République Démocratique du Congo. L’objectif principal était de vérifier le lien entre le taux d’anthropisation des habitats et la fréquence des espèces observées afin d’identifier d’éventuelles espèces indicatrices des perturbations anthropiques. L’observation directe a généré 815 Amphibiens capturés dans les habitats anthropisés (étang piscicole, jachère) et non anthropisés (marécage, forêt secondaire, forêt primaire). Sur les 37 espèces identifiées, 2 (Amietophrynus kisoloensis, Hoplobatrachus occipitalis) vivent uniquement dans les habitats anthropisés et 11 (Afrixalus quadrivittatus, Amietophrynus gracilipes, Arthroleptis variabilis, Cardioglossa gracilis, C. leucomystax, Hyperolius viridiflavus, Leptopelis aubryioides, L. ocellatus, Phrynobatrachus auritus, Ptychadena anchietae, P. chrysogaster) préfèrent uniquement les habitats non anthropisés. La plus forte similarité entre les habitats anthropisés et non anthropisés a été observée à Mambasa (étang piscicole, marécage, jachère, forêt secondaire, forêt primaire) et la plus faible entre les habitats à Butembo (marécage, jachère). Un test de Chi-carré souligne un lien entre le statut d’habitat et les abondances d’Amphibiens. Une corrélation linéaire significative confirme qu’il n’y a pas de relation directe entre les fréquences dans les deux statuts d’habitat. La présente étude confirme le potentiel des Amphibiens comme indicateurs de perturbations anthropiques des écosystèmes.
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