Checklist of Brazilian bats, with comments on original records

Abstract

Lists of Brazilian bats have been compiled since the late 19th century, with remarkable variation in the criteria for species inclusion and use of nomenclature. To update the list of extant bat species that occur in Brazil, the Brazilian Bat Research Society created the Committee of the List of Brazilian Bats. Here we report the first result of the work of this Committee: a list with nine families, 68 genera, and 178 species with documented occurrence in Brazil, including nomenclatural comments. We also present two additional species lists: one with doubtful records (10 species) and other with erroneous records (six species). Since the beginning of the 21st century, 35 new bat species have been recorded for Brazil, and we anticipate that more species will be uncovered over the next years.