Western Yellow Bat

About the Western Yellow Bat

The western yellow bat (Lasiurus xanthinus) is a species of vesper bat found in Mexico and the southwestern United States. This species roosts in trees such as Populus fremontii, Platanus wrightii, and Quercus arizonica. If available, the western yellow bat will use the dead fronds that encircle palm trees as a roosting site.

It was described as a new subspecies of bat in 1897 by British zoologist Oldfield Thomas. He listed it as a subspecies of the southern yellow bat, with a trinomen of Dasypterus ega xanthinus. In 2015, Baird et al. argued that this species and other yellow bats should be in the genus Dasypterus, though others have since argued that Dasypterus should remain a subgenus of Lasiurus. In 1988, Baker et al. argued that it should be considered a full species based on its genetics. In a 2017 follow-up to their 2015 study, Baird et al. again expressed that Aeorestes, Dasypterus, and Lasiurus should be separate genera comprising the tribe Lasiurini. They stated that the genetic distance of the three genera was much greater than observed between other bat genera, on average. In contrast to the average of 12.0% inter-generic divergence reported... Wikipedia →