Tuesday, June 30, 2015

[Mammalogy • 2015] Glischropus aquilus • Thumb-pads Up — A New Species of Thick-thumbed Bat (Chiroptera: Vespertilionidae: Glischropus) from Sumatra


aDark Thick-thumbed Bat | Glischropus aquilus 
Csorba, Görföl, Wiantoro, Kingston, Bates & Huang, 2015
FIGURE 1. Portraits of live specimens of a) Glischropus aquilus n. sp. holotype from Sumatra (MZB 35030),  b) G. bucephalus paratype from Cambodia (HNHM 2006.34.37.), c) G. tylopus from Thailand (HNHM 2009.52.1.). 
Not to scale. | Csorba, et al. 2015

Abstract

To date, three species of the genus Glischropus are recognized from the Indomalayan zoogeographic region—G. bucephalus from the Indochinese subregion, G. tylopus from the Sundaic subregion (Peninsular Thailand and Malaysia, Borneo, Sumatra, Moluccas) and G. javanus, restricted to Java. The investigation of the holotype and three topotype specimens of G. batjanus supported the view that the name was previously correctly regarded as the junior subjective synonym of G. tylopus. During review of material recently collected in southwestern Sumatra, Indonesia, one specimen of a yet undescribed species of Thick-thumbed bat was identified. Glischropus aquilus n. sp. markedly differs from its congeners by its dark brown pelage, nearly black ear and tragus, and in skull proportions. The phylogenetic analysis based on cytb sequences also supports the specific distinctness of G. aquilus n. sp. Its discovery brings the count to 88 species of bats known from Sumatra.

Keywords: Bukit Barisan Selatan, Indonesia, Pipistrellini, taxonomy


Etymology. The specific epithet /a.kvi.lus/ (meaning dark-coloured in English) refers to the blackish ears and generally darker pelage of the new species relative to its congeners.
The proposed English name is Dark Thick-thumbed Bat.


Csorba, Gábor, Tamás Görföl, Sigit Wiantoro, T. Kingston, Paul J. J. Bates & Joe C.-C. Huang. 2015. Thumb-pads Up — A New Species of Thick-thumbed Bat from Sumatra (Chiroptera: Vespertilionidae: Glischropus). Zootaxa. 3980(2): 267–278.