THE FIRST GRAY MYOTlS IN INDIANA WAS ACTUALLY A SOUTHEASTERN MYOTIS.

The gray myotis, Myotis grisescens. is a cavernicolous species which until recent years was infrequently found in Indiana. Walter L. Hahn collected a bat on 9 August 1907 from Twin (currently Bronson) Cave, Lawrence County, Indiana in what is now Spring Mill State Park. It was sent to Arthur H. Howell who in March of 1909 described the gray myotis and concluded Hahn's specimen was a gray myotis. This was the first and only gray myotis known from the state for five decades. However, when one considers in combination (1) information Hahn and subsequent researchers provided, (2) the taxonomic malaise of bats in the genus Myotis at the time, (3) Hahn's numerous captures of southeastern myotis (M. austroriparius) incorrectly identified, including four individuals capture at the same time and place as the individual he identified as a gray myotis, (4) unique coloration of some southeastern myotis, concurrent with Howell's notation that Hahn's bat differed "slightly in color" from specimens he used to describe the gray myotis, and (5) most notably, that the southeastern myotis would not be described as a species for an additional 19 years, it argues that the first recorded gray myotis in Indiana was actually a southeastern myotis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]