A checklist of bats (Mammalia: Chiroptera) from Iraq
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ORIGINAL ARTICLE
A checklist of bats (Mammalia: Chiroptera) from Iraq Montazer K. Mensoor1 Received: 19 April 2020 / Accepted: 9 July 2020 © Deutsche Gesellschaft für Säugetierkunde 2020
Abstract The current research article represents the first complete review and detailed documentation of available data on the distribution of bats in Iraq. All information was collected from literature records, survey data, and museum collections. This checklist of bats of Iraq has been developed based on several data sources, including previously published literature and recent discoveries of new species. According to previous and recent records, the bat checklist in Iraq includes 19 species of six families: Emballonuridae (one species), Molossidae (one species), Rhinopomatidae (two species), Rhinolophidae (four species), Hipposideridae (one species), Vespertilionidae (nine species), and Miniopteridae (one species). Some corrections were added to previously published records, according to the revised identifications and the new taxonomic information. However, there are still many gaps in the data available on the bats of Iraq. Further field research should be conducted in the future to update the current checklist. Keywords Chiroptera · Distribution · Iraq · Checklist of bats
Introduction Iraq, with a total area of 438,320 km2, is located at the northwestern end of the Persian Gulf. It is bordered by Kuwait, Saudi Arabia to the south, Jordan to the west, Syria to the northwest, Turkey to the north and Iran to the east (Haggett 2002). Topographically, Iraq is shaped like a basin, consisting of the Mesopotamian alluvial plain of the Tigris and the Euphrates rivers (AQUASTAT 2009). This plain is encircled by mountains in the north and the east, some of these mountains may reach altitudes of 3550 m above sea level, and by desert areas in the south and west, which cover over 40% of the land area. For administrative purposes, Iraq is divided into eighteen provinces, of which three (Erbil, Dohuk, and Sulaymaniya) are grouped in an autonomous region in the north and the other fifteen provinces are in central and southern Iraq (AQUASTAT 2009). Iraq’s shoreline is just 58 km. There are two main rivers, the Tigris and Euphrates, flowing south through the centre of Iraq and run into the Shatt
Handling editor: Danilo Russo. * Montazer K. Mensoor [email protected] 1
International Centre for Training, Research and Development (ICTRD), Baghdad, Iraq
al-Arab near the Persian Gulf (Jones et al. 2008). These two rivers provide Iraq with significant amounts of productive land (Al Sheikhly et al. 2015). The climate of Iraq is categorized as sub-tropical continental; where summer season is hot and dry, and winter is fairly cold, with precipitation rate ranges from 700 to 1000 mm (Al‐Nassar et al. 2020). The maximum recorded temperature is 50 °C, while the minimum recorded temperature is − 3 °C (Salman et al. 2018) (Fig. 1). Biogeographically, Iraq is divided into five biomes: desert, steppe, alluvial and marshland, forest, and alpine
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