Abstract
According to Nagorsen and Brigham (1993), the Western Red Bat (Lasiurus blossevillii) is the only species of red bat that occurs in British Columbia. Its occurrence is based on a single museum specimen collected 6 July 1905 in the Skagit Valley of southern British Columbia. The specimen originally was identified and labelled (Fig. 1) as the ‘‘Western Red Bat Lasiurus borealis teliotis’’, the western subspecies of the Eastern Red Bat (Anderson 1946; van Zyll de Jong 1985). Subsequent genetic studies using allozymes (Baker and other 1988) and mitochondrial ribosomal genes (Morales and Bickham 1995) demonstrated that the eastern and western North American populations are distinct species, L. borealis and L. blossevillii. From the subspecific name on the specimen tag, the Skagit specimen was presumed to be L. blossevillii by Nagorsen and Brigham (1993). Two recent fatalities of L. borealis at a wind energy facility in northeastern British Columbia prompted us to reassess the identity of the Skagit specimen with DNA sequencing and review the status of red bats in the province.