A New Name for the Mexican Red Bat

A New Name for the Mexican Red Bat by E. Raymond untangles a century-old taxonomic mystery at the heart of Mexico’s bat fauna. In this concise scientific study, E. Raymond revisits Saussure’s 1861 name Atalapha mexicana and Gerrit S. Miller Jr.’s influential 1897 revision to clarify which Lasiurus species—red bat (Lasiurus borealis) or hoary bat (Lasiurus cinereus)—Saussure originally described. Blending historical detective work with careful morphological comparison, the author examines museum specimens, field records (including mid-20th-century collections from southern Mexico), and diagnostic features such as tail and femoral patagia, tooth counts, and pelage coloration. Set within the practices of mid-century mammalogy and museum-based taxonomy, the study shows how new locality records and reexamination of old names reshape scientific understanding of species distribution and nomenclature. A New Name for the Mexican Red Bat is a clear, authoritative contribution to science and natural history that illuminates the meticulous reasoning behind species renaming. Ideal for mammalogists, bat researchers, museum curators, and naturalists curious about bat taxonomy, nomenclature, and the history of zoological classification.