The Japanese long-eared bat (''Plecotus sacrimontis'') is a species of

vesper bat Vespertilionidae is a family of microbats, of the order Chiroptera, flying, insect-eating mammals variously described as the common, vesper, or simple nosed bats. The vespertilionid family is the most diverse and widely distributed of bat famili ...

endemic to

Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...

, where it is found in

Hokkaido is the list of islands of Japan by area, second-largest island of Japan and comprises the largest and northernmost prefectures of Japan, prefecture, making up its own list of regions of Japan, region. The Tsugaru Strait separates Hokkaidō fr ...

Honshu , historically known as , is the largest of the four main islands of Japan. It lies between the Pacific Ocean (east) and the Sea of Japan (west). It is the list of islands by area, seventh-largest island in the world, and the list of islands by ...

and

Shikoku is the smallest of the List of islands of Japan#Main islands, four main islands of Japan. It is long and between at its widest. It has a population of 3.8 million, the least populated of Japan's four main islands. It is south of Honshu ...

. It has distinctive, long

ear In vertebrates, an ear is the organ that enables hearing and (in mammals) body balance using the vestibular system. In humans, the ear is described as having three parts: the outer ear, the middle ear and the inner ear. The outer ear co ...

s, hence its Japanese name, the 'rabbit bat'. Formerly included as a subspecies of the European bat '' Plecotus auritus'', genetic studies now indicate ''Plecotus sacrimontis'' is a separate species.Ohdachi, Satoshi D. I; Ishibashi, Yasuyuki; Iwasa, Masahiro A.; Saitoh, Takashi (2009): ''The Wild Mammals of Japan'', Shoukadoh, Kyoto, C0645

Taxonomy and etymology

It was described as a new species in 1908 by American

zoologist Zoology ( , ) is the scientific study of animals. Its studies include the structure, embryology, classification, habits, and distribution of all animals, both living and extinct, and how they interact with their ecosystems. Zoology is one ...

Glover Morrill Allen Glover Morrill Allen (February 8, 1879 – February 14, 1942) was an American zoologist. Born in Walpole, New Hampshire, the son of Reverend Nathaniel Glover Allen and Harriet Ann (Schouler) Allen, he studied at Harvard University. While still a ...

. The

holotype A holotype (Latin: ''holotypus'') is a single physical example (or illustration) of an organism used when the species (or lower-ranked taxon) was formally described. It is either the single such physical example (or illustration) or one of s ...

had been collected in December 1906 by

Alan Owston Alan Owston (1853–1915) was born on 7 August 1853 at Pirbright, Surrey and was buried on 30 November 1915 at Yokohama in Japan. He was a collector of Asian wildlife, businessman and yachtsman, and founded the Yokohama Yacht Club in Japan. Alan Ow ...

Mount Fuji is an active stratovolcano located on the Japanese island of Honshu, with a summit elevation of . It is the highest mountain in Japan, the second-highest volcano on any Asian island (after Mount Kerinci on the Indonesian island of Sumatra), a ...

. Allen received the specimen from

Thomas Barbour Thomas Barbour (August 19, 1884 – January 8, 1946) was an American herpetologist. He was the first president of the Dexter School in 1926. From 1927 until 1946, he was director of the Harvard Museum of Comparative Zoology (MCZ) founded in 1 ...

. Allen noted that it resembled the

brown long-eared bat The brown long-eared bat or common long-eared bat (''Plecotus auritus'') is a small Eurasian insectivorous bat. It has distinctive ears, long and with a distinctive fold. It is extremely similar to the much rarer grey long-eared bat which was ...

, ''Plecotus auritus''. Its

species name In taxonomy, binomial nomenclature ("two-term naming system"), also called binary nomenclature, is a formal system of naming species of living things by giving each a name composed of two parts, both of which use Latin grammatical forms, altho ...

"''sacrimontis''" is from

Latin Latin ( or ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally spoken by the Latins (Italic tribe), Latins in Latium (now known as Lazio), the lower Tiber area aroun ...

'' sacer'' meaning "sacred" and ''

mons Mons commonly refers to: * Mons, Belgium, a city in Belgium * Mons pubis (mons Venus or mons veneris), in mammalian anatomy, the adipose tissue lying above the pubic bone * Mons (planetary nomenclature), a sizable extraterrestrial mountain * Batt ...

'' meaning "mountain." In 1929,

Nikolay Alekseyevich Bobrinski Professor Count Nikolay Alekseyevich Bobrinski (10 March 1890 – 27 December 1964) was a Russian zoologist and biogeographer. He was a student of Mikhail Menzbier, M.A. Menzbier and was especially interested in the zoogeography of mammals. He ...

published that he considered ''P. sacrimontis'' as a

synonym A synonym is a word, morpheme, or phrase that means precisely or nearly the same as another word, morpheme, or phrase in a given language. For example, in the English language, the words ''begin'', ''start'', ''commence'', and ''initiate'' are a ...

of ''P. auritus''. In 1938, Allen himself expressed doubts about ''P. sacrimontis'' as a species, saying "Bobrinski...is very likely right in believing the name a synonym of ''P. auritus''." In 1942,

George Henry Hamilton Tate George Henry Hamilton Tate (April 30, 1894 – December 24, 1953) was a British-born American zoologist and botanist, who worked as a mammalogist for the American Museum of Natural History in New York City. In his lifetime he wrote several book ...

published that he considered ''P. sacrimontis'' as a

subspecies In Taxonomy (biology), biological classification, subspecies (: subspecies) is a rank below species, used for populations that live in different areas and vary in size, shape, or other physical characteristics (Morphology (biology), morpholog ...

of ''P. auritus'', with a

trinomen In biology, trinomial nomenclature is the system of names for taxa below the rank of species. These names have three parts. The usage is different in zoology and botany. In zoology In zoological nomenclature, a trinomen (), trinominal name, or ...

of ''P. auritus sacrimontis''. This was largely maintained until 2006, when Spitzenberger et al. revised the genus ''

Plecotus ''Plecotus'' is a genus of vesper bat, commonly called long-eared bats. They are found throughout Eurasia and northern Africa. Many species in the genus Genus (; : genera ) is a taxonomic rank above species and below family (taxonomy), family ...

''. They found that ''P. sacrimontis'' had a high

genetic distance Genetic distance is a measure of the genetics, genetic divergence between species or between population#Genetics, populations within a species, whether the distance measures time from common ancestor or degree of differentiation. Populations with ...

from other ''Plecotus'' species, and thus determined that it should be considered a full species rather than a subspecies of ''P. auritus''.

Description

It has woolly fur and a "mask" of darker fur on its face.

Range and habitat

Its range includes several islands of

, including

, Rebun, and Rishiri. It is also found on the

Kuril Islands The Kuril Islands or Kurile Islands are a volcanic archipelago administered as part of Sakhalin Oblast in the Russian Far East. The islands stretch approximately northeast from Hokkaido in Japan to Kamchatka Peninsula in Russia, separating the ...

, specifically

Iturup Iturup (; ), also historically known by #Names, other names, is an island in the Kuril Archipelago separating the Sea of Okhotsk from the North Pacific Ocean. The town of Kurilsk, administrative center of Kurilsky District, is located roughly mi ...

and

Kunashir Kunashir Island (; ; ), possibly meaning ''Black Island'' or ''Grass Island'' in Ainu language, Ainu, is the southernmost island of the Kuril Islands. The island has been under Russia, Russian administration since the end of World War II, when S ...

. It has been documented at a range of elevations from above sea level.

Conservation

As of 2019, it is evaluated as a

least-concern species A least-concern species is a species that has been evaluated and categorized by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) as not being a focus of wildlife conservation because the specific species is still plentiful in the wil ...

by the

IUCN The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) is an international organization working in the field of nature conservation and sustainable use of natural resources. Founded in 1948, IUCN has become the global authority on the status ...

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q2164481 Plecotus Bats of Asia Endemic mammals of Japan Japanese long-eared bat Japanese long-eared bat