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A significant number of African species of bats remain known by very few specimens, scattered across the continent; some are represented by a decent series at a single locality, then elsewhere (often far away) by single specimens only. Invariably, the latter have escaped detection and sat in collections for years before their discovery to science.
This history is epitomized in the circumstances attached to the discoveries of two species of bats, namely Tadarida lobata [photo below] and Myonycteris relicta, in southern Africa. In both cases, enigmatic specimens turned up in Zimbabwe, far south from their known distributions in Kenya [see PDFs below]
The circumstances attached to the discovery of the vespertilionid bat, Mimetillus [photo right] in southern Mozambique is equally interesting. The single museum specimen, from Zinave, had been mis-identified (but also published) as something very different, namely the equally rare Scotoecus albofuscus. Its correct identification as Mimetillus thomasi revealed the first known specimen in southern Africa; a range extension from the nearest known localities far to the north - in northern Zambia and southern Tanzania. [see PDF Below]
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