History of Madagascar
By the 15th century, Europeans had wrested control of the spice trade from the Muslims. They did this by bypassing the Middle East and sending their cargo-ships around the Cape of Good Hope to India. The Portuguese mariner Diogo Dias became the first European to set foot on Madagascar when his ship, bound for India, blew off course in 1500. In the ensuing two-hundred years, the English and French tried (and failed) to establish settlements on the island.
Miniopterus aelleni
In a 1995 contribution to "Faune de Madagascar" on Malagasy bats, Randolph Peterson and colleagues listed four species of "Miniopterus" on Madagascar and the nearby Comoros, including the small "Miniopterus manavi" with a broad distribution on both Madagascar and the Comoros. However, during the first decade of the 21st century, molecular studies have revealed that "Miniopterus", a widespread genus in the Old World, is much more species-rich than previously thought. A 2008 study comparing sequences of the mitochondrial cytochrome "b" and D-loop markers found two distinct, unrelated groups within the supposed "M. manavi" from the Comoros; both groups were also found on Madagascar. The next year, Steven Goodman and colleagues revisited the group with more extensive sampling on Madagascar. They separated three species within the former ""M. manavi"": "M. manavi" itself in the Central Highlands, "M. griveaudi" (previously a subspecies of "M. manavi") on Anjouan, Grande Comore, and northern and western Madagascar, and the newly described "Miniopterus aelleni" on Anjouan and northern and western Madagascar. The specific name "aelleni" honors Prof. Villy Aellen of the Natural History Museum of Geneva, who has done much research on African bats. Within "M. aelleni", Goodman and colleagues found some differentiation (3.4% sequence divergence in cytochrome "b" sequences) between individuals from Montagne d'Ambre in northern Madagascar and those from Anjouan and Ankarana, near Montagne d'Ambre; the cytochrome "b" divergence between "M. aelleni" and other Malagasy "Miniopterus" is 7 to 10%.