New taxa of vespertilionid bats (Chiroptera, Mammalia) from the Late
Miocene of Ukraine
Valentina V. Rosina and Yuriy A. Semenov
With 4 igures and 2 tables
Rosina, V.V. & semenoV , Y .A. (2012): New taxa of vespertilionid bats (Chiroptera, Mammalia) from
the Late Miocene of Ukraine. – N. Jb. Geol. Paläont. Abh., 264: 191-203; Stuttgart.
Abstract: A new genus Eptenonnus nov. gen. represented by E. gritsevensis nov. sp. and a new spe-
cies of Myotis, M. korotkevichae nov. sp. are described from the Gritsev locality (the Early Vallesian,
MN 9) of Ukraine. E. gritsevensis is a medium-sized vespertilionid which combines some plesio-
morphic features (e.g. three lower premolars and two upper premolars in dentition) with apomorphic
characters (e.g. a short incisor tooth-row, a strong reduction of P2). The new species, M. korotkevi-
chae, is the largest Neogene Myotis known up to now from the territory of the Eastern Paratethys.
Morphologically it is similar to the Pliocene M. podlesicensis from Poland.
Key words: Mammalia, Chiroptera, Late Miocene, Ukraine, Eptenonnus gritsevensis nov. gen., nov.
sp., Myotis korotkevichae nov. sp.
1. Introduction
The history of bats during the Vallesian (MN9-10), the
earlier stage of the Late Miocene, is almost unknown.
Only a few scarce records are available from the re-
gion of the Central Paratethys (ZiegleR 2006). Until
recently no bat fauna was reported from the Miocene
from the Eastern part of Europe, east of the Carpath-
ians. A rich assemblage of fossil bats from the Late
Miocene locality Gritsev in the Ukraine (T opacheVskY
at al. 1996) promises to ill this gap. The very rich and
numerous mammal fauna from Gritsev is well inves-
tigated (nesin & kowalski 1997; RZebik kowalska &
T opacheVskY 1997; moRlo & semenoV 2004). The fos-
sil bats here are also very common and diverse. Fossil
bats of three families, Rhinolophidae, Molossidae and
Vespertilionidae, are present in the Gritsev taphoce-
nosis. In this work only some new peculiar fossils of
vespertilionid bats are described.
The locality of Gritsev was situated in the eastern
wall of reefal limestones in a quarry near of the village
of Hrytsiv, Shepetivskii district of the Khmelnitskii re-
gion of the Ukraine. In this limestone bed (thickness
was up to 10 m) were found karstic sinkholes, illed
with bone-bearing sediments. The overlying deposits
were represented by calcareous gravelstone and clay
and contained Mactra podolica eichwald (T opach-
eVskY et al. 1996).
The Gritsev mammalian fauna includes Schizo-
galerix sp., Domninoides sp., Anourosoricodon ( =
Crusafontina) sp., Cricetulodon complicidens T opach-
eVskY & skoRik, 1992, Anomalomys sp. (T opacheVskY
et al. 1996; nesin & nadachoVski 2001) and belongs to
the zone MN 9 and to the Bessarabian regional stage
of the middle Sarmatian (koRoTkeVich 1988; V an-
gengeim et al. 2006). Apparently the Gritsev fauna is
one of the oldest among the early Vallesian faunas of
Europe because it is characterized by absence of Mu-
©2012 E. Schweizerbart’sche Verlagsbuchhandlung, Stuttgart, Germany www.schweizerbart.de
DOI: 10.1127/0077-7749/2012/0236 0077-7749/2012/0236 $ 3.50
N. Jb. Geol. Paläont. Abh. 264/3, 191–203 Article
Stuttgart, June 2012