The Bats of Somalia and Neighbouring Areas by Benedetto Lanza, Ugo Funaioli & Marco Riccucci.
 
African bats play critical ecological roles. These include insect eaters, pollinators, and seed dispersers. These mammals are challenged by anthropogenic factors including habitat loss and poaching. Much remains to be discovered about African bat species and existing data must be synthesized and made available to the scientific and lay community. This book represents such an effort, significantly contributing to the understanding of African, and especially Somali bats. For this text, a total of ~3,650 specimens (nearly all Somali) from 23 museums were examined (all measurements by a single author), which represents a comprehensive and unparalleled examination of these taxa. This compendium is well placed amongst classic resources on African bats, including Rosevear’s Bats of West Africa, Monadjem et al.’s Bats of Southern and Central Africa, and the Chiroptera volume of Kingdon’s Mammals of Africa.