REVISION OF THE BATS OF THE GENUS GLOSSOPHAGA. 



By Gerrit S, Miller, Jr., 



Curator, Division of Mammals, United States National Museum. 



The first American leaf-nosed bat to be described in detail was the 

 Vespertilio soricinus of Pallas, now the type of the genus Glossopliaga, 

 an animal which attracted special attention by its small size, shrew- 

 like head, and conspicuously extensible tongue. Pallas wrote two 

 accounts of the species, the first ^ based on a female, the second ^ on a 

 male. Although the external characters and the general anatomy 

 are treated with unusual minuteness, and no less than four plates are 

 partly or wholly devoted to the animal, no exact determination of 

 the original Vespertilio soricinus is possible. Two species, one of 

 them recently described as G. longirostris, are now known to inhabit 

 the region from which Pallas received his material, and not one of 

 the characters described or figured is diagnostic. The name has, how- 

 ever, been uniformly applied for about 50 years ^ to the more widely 

 distributed and better known of the two animals, while there is noth- 

 iag in either of the accounts given by Pallas which definitely points 

 to any other conclusion. Therefore no change is required.* 



During the first half of the nineteenth century a few synonyms 

 were applied to Glossophaga soricina, principally because of failure to 

 understand the characters described by Pallas. The history of this 

 period was so fully treated by Peters in 1865 that it needs no special 

 mention here. In 1896 and 1897 two more names were added to the 

 synonymy of true soricina, apparently because the larger Mexican 

 race was supposed to be the typical form. Local insular forms were 



1 Miscellanea Zoologica, pp. 48-53, pi. 4, figs. 16-18, pi. 5. 1766. 



2 Spicilegia Zoologica, fasc. 3, pp. 24-35, pi. 3, pi. 4, figs. 1-10. 1767. 



'Peters, Monatsber. k. preuss. Akad. Wiss. Berlin, 1865, pp. 351-354, and 1868, pp. 362-363; Dobson, 

 Cat. Chir. Brit. Mus., 187S, pp. 499-501 (description and most of the listed specimens); Miller, Proc. Acad. 

 Nat. Sci. Philadelphia, 1898, pp. 330-333; all subsequent writers who have distinguished between G. sori- 

 cina and G. longirostris. 



* It might be urged that the measurement of the forearm published in the Miscellanea is more likely to 

 apply to G. longirostris than to G. soricina. It is 1 inch SJ lines=37 mm. In the common South American 

 form of soricina the length of forearm ranges from 33 to 36.6 mm., in G. longirostris from 34.6 to 39.4 mm. 

 Half a mElimeter is obviously too slight a discrepancy to receive serious consideration. In the second 

 specimen measured by Pallas the length of forearm is 34 mm. 



Proceedings U. S. National Museum, Vol. 46— No. 2034. 



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