Bat Detective Fellow in Search for New Species

Don Wilson and Smithsonian fellow Ricardo Moratelli name this bat the “Myotis midastactus”

Ricardo Moratelli, a post-doctoral fellow at the National Museum of Natural History, is a bat detective on the search for new bat species. Moratelli has been working for the last 10 years on the taxonomy of bats, specifically focused on the Neotropical species. Moratelli said in a recent interview with Smithsonian Science, “The collections from the American Museum of Natural History (in New York) and the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History allowed me to compare the morphology of specimens from different localities.” Moratelli has described six new species and is working on describing at least six more.

To read more about the interview click here.