The Italian Ministry of Environment and Protection of Territory and Sea is pleased to officially announce that a bat species new to Italy, the cryptic Alcathoe's bat (Myotis alcathoe) was recently recorded for Italy.
The discovery is due to scientific co-operation between the Polish Academy of Science (in the persons of Dr. Anna Tereba and Prof. Wieslaw Bogdanowicz) and the University of Naples Federico II, Italy (Dr. Danilo
Russo, Laboratorio di Ecologia Applicata). The species was first observed in beech forests of the Abruzzo region (central Italy) and identified on a genetical basis by sequencing a fragment of the mitochondrial ND1 gene that codes for the subunit 1 of the protein NADH dehydrogenase.
The next step will now to assess the species' range and conservation status in the country.

The species has been discovered also in Austria. An article ("On the occurrence of Myotis alcathoe von Helversen and Heller, 2001 in Austria") has been published in Hystrix, The Italian Journal of Mammalogy, Vol. 19, No. 1 (2008), by Friederike Spitzenberger (Natural History Museum Vienna), Igor Pavlinic (Croatian Natural History Museum Zagreb) and Martina Podnar (Croatian Natural History Museum Zagreb).
The full article is available for subscribers only at the Hystrix website.

Abstract (also available in Italian on the Hystrix website, please click here):
In 2006, one male and two females of Myotis alcathoe were captured in mistnets at two localities in southern Burgenland, Austria. For two individuals the preliminary specific identification based on external measurements was confirmed by sequencing parts of the mitochondrial ND1 gene. Across the sequenced region, the two analysed bats share a 100% identical haplotype that corresponds to the haplotype found in Hungarian bats identified as M. alcathoe, and was found also in Spanish, French and Slovakian samples. The three animals from Burgenland constitute the first records of this species in Austria. Age related differences in pelage and membrane colouration and measurements of M. alcathoe are described. A comparison of skull length measurements between M. alcathoe and Myotis mystacinus seems to indicate that the interspecific difference in external dimensions is not reflected in skull dimensions. The Austrian localities of M. alcathoe belong to the Pannonian part of the range like findings in Slovakia and Hungary.