Turkmen Long-Eared Bat Found in Uzbekistan for the First Time in 55 Years

Scientists from the Institute of Zoology of the Academy of Sciences of Uzbekistan, working together with foreign colleagues, have discovered a rare biological species in the country that had not previously been recorded there — the Turkmen long-eared bat.

The scientific expedition took place in September in the “Southern Ustyurt” National Nature Park, located near the border with Turkmenistan. The research was carried out as part of the “One Health in Nature Conservation” project, supported by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) and the German government.

Until now, information about this rare species had been based mainly on old records collected up to the 1970s and on museum specimens. According to Maria Gritsyna, a senior researcher at the Institute of Zoology, the bat had hardly been observed in the wild for more than half a century.

Zoologist Pyotr Strelkov had previously described the animal as a form closely related to the grey long-eared bat (Plecotus austriacus). However, Friederike Spitzenberger and her team later demonstrated through genetic and morphological studies that the Turkmen long-eared bat is a distinct species.

The latest discovery has become the first official confirmation that this species is indeed part of Uzbekistan’s fauna.

Earlier, in 2025, researchers from the Berlin Museum of Natural History detected this bat in the border area of Turkmenistan’s Karakum Desert and suggested that it might also inhabit neighboring Uzbekistan.

Museum specialists note that climate change and rising temperatures in the desert regions of Central Asia are reducing vegetation cover, which in turn narrows the available habitat for rare animal species.