A new Myotis species is described in the latest issue of Acta Chiropterologica on the basis of morphology and barcoding sequences from Vietnam and Lao PDR. It also occurs in China, according to barcoding results from earlier literature. The species resembles Myotis montivagus and Myotis sicarius and as there are published records on specimens only tentatively identified as M. montivagus, the number of localities may grow further.
The new species, Myotis indochinensis, is characterised by a relatively long forearm, moderately long ears, flat cranial profile and wide anteorbital bridge. It shows the characteristics of both ‘Myotis’ and ‘Selysius’ ecomorphs, hence our morphological investigations support the recent phylogenetic analyses showing that former ‘subgenera’ of Myotis are in fact paraphyletic groups, even within Southeast Asia. Nevertheless, many of the external and craniodental features formerly used to separate these subgenera provide a practical means of grouping species. An identification key to the middle and large-sized Indomalayan Myotis with small feet is also provided in the article to help the work with this group of species.
Original citation: Son, N.T., T. Görföl, C.M. Francis, M. Motokawa, M., P. Estók, H. Endo, V. Dinh Thong, N.X. Dang, T. Oshida, and G. Csorba. 2013. Description of a new species of Myotis (Vespertilionidae) from Vietnam. Acta Chiropterologica, 15(2): 473-483.
