O’SHEA, CRYAN & BOGAN: UNITED STATES BAT SPECIES OF CONCERN 
127 
cated taxonomic and nomenclat- 
ural history of the species, finally 
noting withdrawal of the petition 
and instead correcting the species 
name to Myotis leibii (Glass and 
Baker, 1968). Morphological 
analysis of skulls showed clear 
separation of M. leibii from M. 
ciliolabrum (van Zyll de Jong, 
1984), which was subsequently 
supported by protein elec¬ 
trophoretic data (Herd, 1987). 
Recent molecular genetic analy¬ 
sis also suggests distinctiveness 
of M. leibii, but confirms a close 
relationship and fairly recent 
evolutionary separation of M. 
leibii with M. ciliolabrum 
(Rodriguez and Ammerman, 
2004; Ammerman et al., 2016). 
There are no subspecies of 
M. leibii currently recognized. 
See Best and Jennings (1997) for 
a synonymy of past scientific 
names applied to this species. 
The generic name originates with 
Greek words meaning “mouse” 
and “ear”. The specific epithet is a patronym in honor of George Clinton Leib, a 19 th Century physi¬ 
cian and naturalist, who provided the specimen from Ohio for Audubon and Bachman’s (1842) 
original description of the species. Other common names include eastern small-footed bat, least 
myotis, least bat, least brown myotis, least brown bat, Leib’s myotis, Leib’s masked bat, and Leib’s 
bat. 
Habitats and Relative Abundance.— The eastern small-footed myotis has mostly been 
reported from upland forested areas in hilly or mountainous terrain. Habitat associations are poor¬ 
ly known because of the relative rarity of this species, although recent evidence suggests an affin¬ 
ity for talus slopes and other exposed rock outcrops associated with roosting (see below; Johnson 
and Gates, 2008; Johnson et al., 2011; Whitby et al., 2013; Moosman et al., 2015). Perceived rari¬ 
ty of eastern small-footed myotis in mist netting surveys may be associated with distance to roost¬ 
ing habitat, because probability of capturing them likely drops precipitously with increasing dis¬ 
tance from their roost sites (Johnson et al., 2011). 
Georgia and South Carolina: Eastern small-footed myotis have only been found in northern 
parts of Georgia with mountainous or karst topography, representing three of six physiographic 
provinces: the Blue Ridge, Ridge and Valley, and Cumberland Plateau provinces (Menzel et al., 
2000). They ranked lowest in relative abundance (four records) among combined museum and cap¬ 
ture records of 1,222 bats of 16 species compiled for the state (Menzel et al., 2000). 
Menzel et al. (2003) examined records of all species of bats across the four physiographic 
provinces of South Carolina, based on 1,002 museum specimens and 2,002 reports of bats captured 
Figure 27. Eastern small-footed myotis, Myotis leibii (photo by J. Scott 
Altenbach). 
