Nouvelles donnees sur les chauves-souris fossiles de localites du Pleistocene moyen et superieur de France

New data on bat fossils from Middle and Upper Pleistocene localities of France * Nouvelles donnees sur les chauves-souris fossiles de localites du Pleistocene moyen et superieur de France Paloma Sevilla a , * , Jean Chaline b a DepartamenlO de PaleonlOlogta, Facultad de Ciencias Geologicas (UCM) e lnstituto de Geologta Economica (CSIC), C/Jose Antonio Novais 2, 28040 Madrid, Spain b UMR 5561 du CNRS, Universite de Bourgogne, 6, boulevard Gabriel, 21100 Dijon, France We describe the bat fossils preserved in four sites from the middle and upper Pleistocene, three of them being well-known French localities: the rock shelter ofLes Valerots, the caves of l'Escale at Saint Esteve Janson and "du Prince" at Grimaldi (Italy), and the filling of Combe-Grenal, all of them containing microvertebrate assemblages with yet undescribed bat fossils, All species represented in these four localities are still presently distributed in France and had been previously recorded in other Pleistocene localities of central and western Europe, including France, The four assemblages differ both in the abundance of bat fossils as in species composition. The characteristics of each assemblage are analysed under modern insights of bat taphonomy and ecology, and compared with those of other bat-bearing French localities of similar age. The relevance of these data concerning the use of the fossil bats to infer past environmental conditions is discussed.