Table 1 . — Dental formulas for the bats in the Southeastern and Mid-Atlantic regions 

 (I = Incisors, C = Canines, Pm = Premolars, M = Molars) 



Upper teeth' Lower teeth-* Total (x2) 



Species 



I 



C Pm 



M 



I 



C 



Pm 



M 





Pipistrellns subflavus 



2 



1 2 



3 



3 



1 



2 



3 



34 



Nycticeius humeralis 



1 



1 1 



3 



3 



1 



2 



3 



30 



Myotis lewii 



2 



1 3 



3 



3 



1 



3 



3 



38 



M. austroriparius 



2 



1 3 



3 



3 



1 



3 



3 



38 



M. septentrionalis 



2 



1 3 



3 



3 



1 



3 



3 



38 



M. lucifugus 



2 



1 3 



3 



3 



1 



3 



3 



38 



M. sodalis 



2 



1 3 



3 



3 



1 



3 



3 . 



38 



M. grisescens 



2 



1 3 



3 



3 



1 



3 



3 



38 



Lasionycteris noctivagans 



2 



1 2 



3 



3 



1 



3 



3 



36 



Corynorhinus rafinesquii 



2 



1 2 



3 



3 



1 



3 



3 



36 



Corynorhinus townsendii 



2 



1 2 



3 



3 



1 



3 



3 



36 



Lasiurus borealis 



1 



1 2 



3 



3 



1 



2 



3 



32 



L. seminolus 



1 



1 2 



3 



3 



1 



2 



3 



32 



L. intermedins 



1 



1 1 



3 



3 



1 



2 



3 



30 



L. cinereus 



1 



1 2 



3 



3 



1 



2 



3 



32 



Eptesicus fuscus 



2 



1 1 



3 



3 



1 



2 



3 



32 



Tadarida brasiliensis 



1 



1 2 



3 



2/3 



1 



2 



3 



30/32 



•"Number of teeth in each side of jaw. 



There has been renewed research emphasis on the 

 distribution and natural history of bats in the 

 Southeastern United States (Menzel et al. 2000). For 

 example, one-half of the 14 peer-reviewed manuscripts 

 and 4 technical reports on the natural history of bats in 

 Georgia have been published within the past 5 years. Yet 

 numerous questions posed by land managers and 

 ecologists remain unanswered. One impediment to 

 expanding research on and monitoring of southeastern 

 bats was the lack of a reliable key for identifying bats in 

 the field. Many existing keys contain information about 

 bat species that are found in the Southeast (Jenkins 1949; 

 Golley 1962; Barbour and Davis 1969; Hoffmeister 

 1989; Sealander and Heidt 1990; Schmidley 1991; 

 Whitaker and Hamilton 1998), but most are difficult to 

 use or are unreliable because they are poorly illustrated, 

 require examination of the lower jaw, or contain 

 univariate discriminatory measurements. 



One of the first illustrated keys to the skins and skulls of 

 southeastern bats was published in The Mammals of 

 Georgia: A Study of Their Distribution and Functional Role 

 in the Ecosystem (Golley 1962). Although of some utility, 

 this key contains morphological measurements that 

 conflict with measurements in other keys. For example. 

 The Mammals of Georgia describes the southeastern 

 myotis {Myotis austroriparius) as having an interorbital 



breadth of less than 4 mm, while The Bats of Texas 

 (Schmidly 1991) describes the interorbital breadth of 

 southeastern myotis as being more than 4 mm. A recent 

 quantitative comparison of 19 skull measurements among 

 six myotid species found in the Southeast revealed that 

 skulls of southeastern myotids could not be identified 

 reliably based on any univariate measurement.' 



Additionally, our prior experience in teaching students 

 and field technicians to identify the bats in the 

 Southeastern and Mid-Atlantic regions using existing keys 

 suggested that additional illustration of diagnostic 

 characteristics, such as those of the keeled calcar of the 

 Indiana bat [Myotis sodalis), would be helpful in 

 identifying some species. Thus, the need for a well- 

 illustrated, accurate, and simple key to the skins and 

 skulls of the bats of the Southeast prompted us to develop 

 the illustrated key presented here. 



Developing the Key 



In constructing the key, we used measurements from 

 museum specimens, information from publications about 



'Menzel, M.A.; Boone, J. L; Menzel, J. M.; Hauge, M. 

 Mensural discrimination among six southeastern myotids. In 

 preparation. 



2 



