Corresponding authors: Jiang Zhou (
Academic editor: Wieslaw Bogdanowicz
The existence of Himalayan long-eared bats,
Luo P, He X, Zhang Y, Ye J, Guo M, Deng J, Zhou C, Zhou J, Zhang L (2023) Confirmation of the existence of Himalayan long-eared bats,
As bats of various species of the genus
The first evidence for the existence of
Bats examined in this study were captured from the Maoershan National Nature Reserve (25°48'N–25°58'N, 110°20'E–110°35'E), which covers an area of 170.09 km2 of mountains with varied vegetation types. Although some areas at lower elevations have been transformed into bamboo forests, most of the reserve is undisturbed with primary forests, especially at higher elevations (
Distribution of
Morphological measurements of bats were performed with electronic digital calipers according to
Morphological measurements of six
Echolocation calls of four bats were recorded using a handheld ultrasound detector (UltraSoundGate 116Hm, Avisoft Bioacoustis, Germany) when they were allowed to fly in a room of 5 × 5 × 2.5 m3 in size. Ultrasound spectrograms were generated using the 512-point Fast Fourier Transform (
To further identify the bats, DNA was extracted from a small piece of the wing membrane of each bat, and polymerase chain reaction was performed to amplify a portion of the mitochondrial cytochrome
The obtained sequences were deposited in GenBank under the following accession numbers:
In
External and cranial measurements (in mm) of
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Body sites measured | GD-221656(♂) / GD-221657(♂) / GD-221658(♂) / GD-221659(♀) | IEBR-M-5469(♀) / IEBR-M-5472(♀) / IEBR-M-5483(♂) / HNHM202011(♀) |
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37.30 / 37.28 / 37.36 / 38.49 | 38.09 / 37.36 / 37.75 / 37.58 |
T | 39.63 / 42.01 / 44.15 / 43.12 | 49.00 / 45.00 / 44.00 / 47.00 |
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50.49 / 50.75 / 46.92 / 45.77 | 45.00 / 42.50 / 37.50 / 42.50 |
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3.82 / 3.28 / 3.84 / 4.46 | 5.34 / 4.78 / 5.11 / 4.89 |
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4.86 / 4.14 / 4.73 / 5.61 | 6.22 / 5.89 / 5.71 / 5.64 |
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17.84 / 17.02 / 17.07 / 18.49 | 17.40 / 18.00 / 16.80 / 17.00 |
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7.96 / 8.18 / 8.56 / 8.38 | 7.98 / 7.64 / 7.96 / 7.99 |
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8.68 / 8.70 / 9.03 / 9.11 | 9.18 / 8.32 / 8.85 / 8.86 |
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17.29 / 14.54 / 15.76 / 15.88 | 18.00 / 17.00 / 18.00 / 18.00 |
E | 36.43 / 38.85 / 38.12 / 39.12 | 38.00 / 39.00 / 37.00 / 39.50 |
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16.02 / 16.34 / 16.43 / 16.37 | 16.03 / 16.00 / 15.35 / 15.61 |
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14.92 / 14.94 / 15.21 / 14.98 | 14.79 / 14.88 / 14.28 / 14.45 |
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14.13 / 14.20 / 14.45 / 14.23 | 14.38 / 14.33 / 13.74 / 14.05 |
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8.70 / 8.81 / 8.69 / 8.79 | 8.95 / 8.94 / 8.41 / 8.70 |
CM3L | 5.12 / 5.13 / 5.19 / 5.08 | 5.33 / 5.02 / 5.05 / 5.23 |
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3.51 / 3.35 / 3.27 / 3.53 | 3.65 / 3.59 / 3.56 / 3.52 |
M3-M3 | 5.77 / 5.72 / 5.71 / 5.69 | 6.00 / 5.50 / 5.56 / 5.63 |
CM3L | 5.74 / 5.60 / 5.75 / 5.65 | 5.70 / 6.00 / 5.27 / 5.27 |
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9.67 / 9.69 / 9.95 / 9.71 | 10.38 / 10.54 / 9.90 / 9.96 |
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2.78 / 2.88 / 2.90 / 2.91 | 3.01 / 3.16 / 2.86 / 3.01 |
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7.30 / 7.34 / 7.17 / 7.30 | 7.76 / 7.53 / 7.75 / 7.83 |
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5.67 / 5.29 / 5.25 / 5.07 | 5.89 / 5.99 / 5.83 / 5.86 |
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8.13 / 8.27 / — / 8.22 | 8.32 / — / — / 8.12 |
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3.32 / 3.21 / 3.47 / 3.25 | 4.02 / 3.97 / 3.64 / 4.05 |
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4.32 / 4.22 / 4.20 / 4.43 | 4.41 / 4.25 / 4.18 / 4.47 |
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3.68 / 3.43 / 3.31 / 3.56 | 3.63 / 3.76 / 3.63 / 3.69 |
Morphologically, the bats have long, wide auricles, each with a prominent tragus (Fig.
Pictures of
Cranial morphology of
Echolocation calls of the four bats are of frequency-modulation (
Sound parameters of
Specimens | Country | Start frequency (kHz) | End frequency (kHz) | Frequency of maximum energy (kHz) | Duration (ms) |
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GD-221656 | China | 70.8 | 53.6 | 57.8 | 1.4 |
GD-221657 | China | 72.9 | 53.6 | 59.1 | 1.4 |
GD-221658 | China | 73.8 | 52.6 | 59.2 | 1.9 |
GD-221659 | China | 78.5 | 49.0 | 58.5 | 1.3 |
Mean ± SD | 74.0 ± 2.8 | 52.2 ± 1.9 | 58.7 ± 0.6 | 1.5 ± 0.2 | |
IEBR-M-5469 | Vietnam | 69.6 | 51.6 | 59.3 | 1.1 |
IEBR-M-5483 | Vietnam | 71.8 | 53.3 | 62.6 | 1.1 |
HNHM202011 | Vietnam | 71.2 | 55.3 | 59.3 | 1.1 |
Mean ± SD | 70.9 ± 0.9 | 53.4 ± 15 | 60.4 ± 1.6 | 1.1 ± 0.0 | |
Kruskal–Wallis test | ns | ns | ns |
Wing characteristics of
Specimens | Wingspan ratio (N/m2) | Wingload |
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GD-221656 | 8.01 | 5.42 |
GD-221657 | 6.44 | 5.41 |
GD-221658 | 6.57 | 6.09 |
GD-221659 | 6.26 | 5.81 |
Mean ± SD | 6.82 ± 0.70 | 5.68 ± 0.29 |
Amplitude and spectrogram of echolocation calls of bats examined in this study.
The phylogenetic tree reveals two major clades. The first clade contains
Phylogenetic tree of bats constructed based on results from the maximum-likelihood (
In this study, we identified four bats captured from Guangxi, China as
List of bat species used in phylogenetic analyses.
Species | Locality | Cyt |
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United States |
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United States |
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Guadalajara, Spain |
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La Rioja, Spain |
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Valais, Switzerland |
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Navarra, Spain |
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Kırklareli, Turkey |
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Rize, Turkey |
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Mainz, Germany |
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Granada, Spain |
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Abune Yusef, Ethiopia |
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Abune Yusef, Ethiopia |
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Guangxi, China |
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Guangxi, China |
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Guangxi, China |
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Lao Cai, Vietnam |
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Lao Cai, Vietnam |
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Lao Cai, Vietnam |
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Lao Cai, Vietnam |
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Cyrenaica, Libya |
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Cyrenaica, Libya |
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Mongolian |
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Mongolian |
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Mongolian |
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Italy |
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Greece |
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Montenegro |
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Hovsgol National Park, Mongolia |
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Baikal, Russian |
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Oita, Japan |
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Hokkaido, Japan |
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La Palma, Spain |
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El Hierro, Spain |
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Plots of the first (PC1) versus the second (PC2) principal component for
Although the four bats are morphologically and phylogenetically identical to
Although many
This work was funded by the Special Foundation for National Science and Technology Basic Research Program of China (2021FY100303) and Guangdong Provincial Science and Technology Program (2021B1212110003, 2021B1212050021).
Additional information
tables (docx. file)
table S1: references of