Pipistrellus nanulus Tiny

Pipistrellus nanulus (Thomas, 1904)

Tiny pipistrelle

Pipistrellus nanulus Thomas, 1904: 198; Efulen, Cameroons (= Cameroon).

New material

HZM.1.40189, ♂, 4 August, 2012, Forest Trails, Lekoumou, 2°45.767’S, 13°36.365’E. This is the first authenticated record for Congo (Appendix I). Its relative abundance in Africa is not known (Happold and Happold, 2013).

Description

A small, nondescript, species with a very short forearm length (26.1 mm) (Table 2). The interfemoral and wing membranes are uniformly dark; the pelage is also uniformly dark on the back and buff-brown on the belly. The muzzle is thick and broadly rounded. In each ear, the tragus has a very slightly concave anterior border, a rounded tip, a smoothly rounded posterior border and a well developed basal lobule (Fig. 8G). The skull is short (GTL= 11.99 mm) (Table 3), the rostrum is short and the braincase is low (Fig. 10C). The first upper incisor (I 2) is strongly bicuspid; the second (I 3) is unicuspid but with a well developed cingulum, it attains two-thirds the height of the secondary cusp of I 2 (Fig. 10C). The small, first upper premolar (P 2) is comparatively well developed and is slightly displaced internally; the canine and second premolar (P 4) are not in contact (Fig. 10C). The lower canine has a small but well-developed cusp on the anterior cingulum. The first lower premolar (P 2) is about equal in crown area and two-thirds the height of the second (P 4) (Fig. 10C). The baculum is long, with a bifid tip, a straight shaft and two, relatively ill-defined, basal lobules (Fig. 11D); this compares well with the baculum of the holotype of nanulus illustrated in Hill and Harrison (1987, Figure 7f).

Taxonomic notes

According to Simmons (2005) there are no other named forms included in the synonymy of P. nanulus.