A NEW SPECIES OF LONG-EARED BAT (NYCTOPHILUSz VESPERTILIONIDAE) FROM NEW CALEDONIA H.E. PanNABY Parnaby HE, 2002. A new species of long-eared bat (Nyctophihzs:Vespertilionidae) from New Caledonia. Australian Mammalogy 23: l15-124. A new species of Nyctophilusis described on the basis of threespecimens from the hinterland of Noumd4 New Caledonia. Comparisons are made with a large seriesof the most similar species,N. gouldi and N. bifax from eastern Australia, from which it differs on external, cranial, dental and penile morphology. The new species most resembles N. gouldi and its affinities appearto lie within the Australian fauna. An IUCN threat category of 'Vulnerable' is suggested due to a localised distribution in threatened high elevation rainforest. Key words: bat, Microchiroptera, Nyctophilus nebulosus, long-eared bat, taxonomy, conservation, New Caledonia, Fiji. H.E. Parnaby, Honorary Research Associate, Mammal Section, Australian Museum, 6 College Street, Sydney, NSI'V 2010, Australia. Manuscript received 26 October 2001; accepted 6 March 2002. THE presence of the long-eared bat genus Nyctophilus in New Caledonia was reported by Trouessart (1915). He listed a specimen which he assigned to "N. major : N. timoriensis" on the basis of the generic revision of Thomas (1915)but did not provide further comment. This specimen is in the Musdum National d'Histoire Naturelle, Paris(number 1897-23\ and the only accompanying data is "Noumda, 1897, Dupuy" (M. Tranier, pers. comm.). This record has been largely ignored in the literature and the genus was not recognised from New Caledonia prior to Flannery(1995), who reported the capture of additionalspecimens. The majority of Nyctophilus species occur in Australia and New Guinea. Six species are recognised from Australia: N. arnhemensrsand N. walkeri from northern Australia; N. brf* from northern and eastern Australia, N. gouldi from eastern and southwestern Australia. N. timoriensis from the southern half of the continent and N. geoffroyi which occurs over much of the continent (Churchill 1998). The distinctive N. microdon is restricted to higher elevations of Papua New Guinea (PNG) and N. microtis is widely distributed throughout PNG (Bonaccorso 1998). Two further species are recorded from a limited number of locations in New Guinea: N. timoriensls from PNG (Hill and Pratt l98l; Bonaccorso 1998) and N. bifax from West Irian and PNG (Tate 1952; Bonaccorso 1998). Two species are known from single specimens: N. heran from LembataIsland,Indonesia (Kitchener et al. l99l) and N. howensis, a possible subfossil from Lord Howe Island (McKean 1975). Although Geoffroy described N. timoriensrs in 1806 from material thought to have been collected in Timor, the country of origin of the type material remains in doubt (Temminck 1840; Hill and Pratt l98l). The genus was also thought to occur in Fiji (Dobson 1878; Miller 1907), but insufficient information accompanies the material (lodged in the British Musuem of Natural History) to enable confirmation of the country of origin (J.E. Hill, pers. comm.). In May 1990, an Australian Museum team obtained a specimen of Nyctophilus in mist-nets set in rainforest on Mt Koghis, near Noum6a. A further two specimenswere mist-netted at the same site in May, l99l as part of a mammal survey of the south- western Pacific (Flannery 1995). These specimens confirmed the presence of the genus on New Caledonia, and represent an undescribed species. METHODS Eighteen cranial and dental characters and l4 external characters were measured as defined by Kitchener et al. (1986) except for the following: greatest skull length was taken from the most posterior projectionof the skull; condylobasal length was taken from the posterior of the occipital condyles; interbulla breadth was taken from the innermost surface of the auditory bullae; basalar length, from the anterior margin of the foramen magnum to the anterior border of the mesopterygoid fossa; metacarpallengths of digit 3 and digit 5 were