Western round-eared bat

The western round-eared bat (Lophostoma occidentale) is a bat of western South America, reported from Colombia, Ecuador and Peru, with the first lines of its article placing it on the Pacific coast of northwestern Ecuador. Davis and Carter described it in 1978 as a subspecies of the white-throated round-eared bat, then named Tonatia silvicola occidentalis. It was recognised as a full species in 2011, in the same publication that showed Lophostoma aequatorialis to be a junior synonym, and its name occidentalis is Latin for western. Its forearm is 51.2 to 56.8 millimetres long, its dorsal fur is long and dark brown, its throat is whitish and it has white or pale gray patches behind the ears. It has been documented at elevations of 300 to 979 metres. The IUCN rated it near threatened in 2016, noting a likely population decline of 20 to 25 percent over three generations because of habitat destruction.