Taxonomy news

This will likely be the last taxonomy update for a while. My teaching load has just been doubled and I’ll be catastrophically busy until at least April.
1. A new genus and species of shrew-like mouse, Baletemys kampalili, described from E Mindanao.
2. A new squirrel Tamiops minshanica described from Wanglang National Natural Reserve in N Sichuan. It’s unclear how extensive the range is.
3. An interesting paper on flying squirrels, proposing some taxonomic changes.
4. A new species Myotis hayesi described from one specimen collected in 2000 in a garden in downtown Phnom Penh. (I don’t like the idea of describing species from one specimen, especially without molecular data: many such “species” have been later found to be hybrids or aberrant individuals. But the authors couldn’t extract DNA.)
5. Myotis arescens of Central Chile split from M. chiloensis. of Southern Chile, from which it differs in having pale underparts etc.
6. Miniopterus fuliginosus of peninsular India and Sri Lanka are split as M. phillipsi. This is the middle-sized bentwing of India and Sri Lanka; look for it in Bambulla Caves. Those in Nepal are still M. fuliginosus.
7. A new species Rhinolophus namuli described its namesake mountain in N Mozambique. It is closely related to R. maendeleo.
8. A paper on the phylogeny of American Eptesicus (incl. Histiotus) suggesting, among other things, that Caribbean subspecies of E. fuscus might be full species despite ome evidence of gene flow.
9. Lophostoma brasiliense split, with the species in Central America, west of the Andes S to Ecuador, and in Magdalena Valley called L. nicaraguae.
10. A new paper proposing splitting the maned sloth into N and S species; the S one (limited to Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro states) is called Bradypus crinitus. I personally think splitting maned sloths as a separate genus is long overdue.
I have PDFs of all these papers except the last one in case anybody’s interested. Also got PDF of the new book about voles and lemmings of the Palearctic by Kryštufek & Shenbrot with some changes in taxonomy but haven’t had time to read it; let me know if you’d like to have it.