Rare Turkmensian long-eared bat found in South Ustyurt park for the first time

This species has been discovered in the country for the first time. The discovery was made in September near the border with Turkmenistan by specialists from the Institute of Zoology of the Academy of Sciences of Uzbekistan together with foreign colleagues. The expedition was carried out as part of the "One Health in Nature Conservation" project under the auspices of the International Union for Conservation of Nature.

The Turkmensian long-eared bat is one of the poorly studied bats of Central Asia. Until recently, data on it was limited to scientific evidence prior to 1970 and museum exhibits, and there were no confirmed encounters in the wild for 55 years.

In 1988, zoologist Petr Strelkov described it as a subspecies of the grey long-eared bat, and in 2006, researchers led by Friederike Spitzenberger recognized it as a separate species. In the autumn of 2025, scientists recorded the Turkmensian long-eared bat in the Karakum Desert in Turkmenistan near the border with Uzbekistan, where they first took its photos, videos, and audio recordings.