PROCEEDINGS OF THE UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM Issued vM^iS^yv'^'l ^H ^ SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION U.S. NATIONAL MUSEUM Vol. 110 Washington : 1959 No. 3417 A REVISION OF AMERICAN BATS OF THE GENERA EUDERMA AND PLECOTUS By Charles O. Handley, Jr. Introduction Confusion and damage to nomenclatural stability are consequences of taxonomic revisions that do not provide adequate explanations or justifications for proposed changes in nomenclature. They are ig-nored, accepted with reservation, or blindly followed by those who have occasion to use them. Confusion of this sort involves a wide-spread American bat, now referred to in literature either as Cory-norhinus or Plecotus. The purpose of this paper is to clarify the status of this bat and its American and Eurasian relatives (particularly Euderma), to assay the evolution of the group, to map geographic distributions, and to bring together the Uterature on natural history of the group. The genera Euderma and Plecotus are vespertilionid bats with ex-ceptionally large ears. They are known colloquially as mule-eared bats, jack-rabbit bats, or, simply, big-eared bats, or long-eared bats. Some species are referred to as lump-nosed bats. Plecotus, as here understood, includes the American Idionycteris and Corynorhinus as subgenera. Perhaps the earliest published reference to an American big-eared bat was that of Clayton (1694, p. 124) in his remarks on the "beasts of Virginia": "Baits, as I remember at least two sorts; one a large 95
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