Of southern African wing-gland bats, woolly bats, and the ones with tubular nostrils (vesper bats part IV)

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Time to continue our trek across the vesper bat cladogram. In the previous article we looked at the bent-winged bats (or miniopterids, or miniopterines): a highly distinctive, morphologically novel group that seem to have diverged from vesper bats proper something like 45 million years ago. Their distinctive nature and long history of isolation relative to other lineages conventionally included within Vespertilionidae mean that bent-winged bats are now argued by many to be worthy of 'family' status. As we'll see here, they're no longer unique - bat workers now argue that another lineage of weird, highly divergent bats should also be separated from Vespertilionidae, and also raised to 'family' status [composite below shows - l to r - Cistugo lesueuri, Kerivoula pellucida and Murina suilla].

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The Cistugo bats

Prior to the 1990s, most authors regarded the weird Cistugo bats from southern Africa as closely related to, or even part of, the mouse-eared bat group (Myotis). Often known as wing-gland bats for the obvious reason (the function of the wing glands remains unknown so far as I can tell), the two Cistugo species also differ from Myotis bats in having particularly small anterior premolars and in having a large cusp on the fourth lower premolar. One of those curiously interesting little facts is that the type specimen of one of the two species (C. lesueuri) was killed by a housecat. Photos of these animals are few and far between: the photos below - showing a male C. seabrae, with wing gland emphasised - are © E. C. J. Seamark and T. C. Kearney and come from Seamark & Kearney (2006). I've tried contacting these authors about use of the photos, but none of the various email addresses online seem to work.

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Since the early 1900s it's been known that Cistugo differs from Myotis in possessing those wing glands and in tooth morphology, and the taxon was originally named as a genus on account of its morphological pecularities (Thomas 1912). A different chromosome count (2n = 50, rather than 2n = 44 for Myotis) later confirmed the distinction of the taxon and led Rautenbach et al. (1993) to suggest that Cistugo might be one of the 'most basal' members of the whole vesper bat radiation. Bickham et al. (2004), Stadelmann et al. (2004) and Lack et al. (2010) seemingly confirmed this, finding wing-gland bats to fall outside the clade that included all other vesper bat taxa. Stadelmann et al. (2004) even noted how "it is even possible that these two species actually share closer phylogenetic relationships with other families of bats" (p. 185). Lack et al. (2010) suggested that Cistugo should be given its own 'family' within Vespertilionoidea: Cistugidae. The recognition of this additional lineages means that I've now modified the vesper bat cladogram - see below. The strong external similarity that the Cistugo bats have with the Myotis species either represents a plesiomorphic similarity, or strong convergence.

The kerivoulines or woolly bats

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With bent-winged bats and the Cistugo bats out of the way, we now get to those lineages still universally included within Vespertilionidae sensu stricto: specifically the kerivoulines ('subfamily' Kerivoulinae) and murinines ('subfamily' Murininae. Be careful not to write it Murinae: that's the rodent clade that includes rats and mice). As explained in the vesper bat family tree article, recent phylogenetic efforts indicate that these two groups are sister-taxa. To my knowledge, the kerivouline + murinine clade doesn't have a name, but it needs one as it's consistently recovered and looks robust.

Traditionally separated from other vesper bats in their own 'subfamily' are the 20 or so woolly bats or painted bats (Kerivoula) and the four funnel-eared bats (Phoniscus) [adjacent Kerivoula illustration © Jonathan Kingdon, from Kingdon (1997)]. They occur across sub-Saharan Africa, Asia and Australasia. Many kerivouline species have long been known from very few specimens, and have also proved difficult to find in field studies. It seems that this is (in part) due to their good ability to avoid mist nests (Francis et al. 2007). Improved recent capture techniques have greatly improved our knowledge of woolly bat distribution and systematics and three species have been described since 2004 (K. kachinensis Bates et al., 2004, K. titania Bates et al., 2007 and K. krauensis Francis et al., 2007).

As suggested by their common name, woolly bats have a woolly pelt, the hairs of which tend to have a crinkled appearance and frosted coloration. The pelt ranges from brownish to greyish, with some species having shiny grey tufts of fur, superficially resembling clumps of moss and hence perhaps assisting with camouflage. Several species have brightly coloured patches on their wing membranes or pelt. In the Painted bat K. picta [shown below; photo courtesy of Ismor Fischer] the membranes are both orange and black, while in K. argentata the body is black and orange, with white tips to the hairs. As usual with brightly coloured or strikingly patterned bats, these species are thought to derive improved camouflage from this pigmentation: K. picta has been reported to roost among dry leaves and flowers. At least some species (I'm thinking of the Clear-winged woolly bat K. pellucida) have a "glandular diamond-shaped swelling ... on the fourth vertebra of the tail" (Bumrungsi et al. 2006, p. 350).

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In both Kerivoula and Phoniscus species, the cranium is strongly domed (but most of this is concealed by fur), the muzzle is fairly long and pointed (compared to that of other vesper bats), and the ears are large, pointed and funnel-shaped. In the funnel-eared bat P. atrox, deep grooves run along the outside of its canines (Francis et al. 2007) and it's sometimes known as the Groove-toothed bat. So it's yet another mammal showing that grooved canines do not necessarily correlate with venomosity (so far as we know).

Low aspect ratio wings, low wing loading and large tail membranes indicate high manoeuvrability and slow flight in cluttered habitats; at least some species (like the Golden-tipped bat P. papuensis of Australia, New Guinea and the Biak-Supiori Islands) appear to be spider specialists, presumably 'hover-gleaning' and picking spiders off their webs (Schulz 2000).

Molecular clock estimates suggest that these bats originated in the Late Oligocene or Early Miocene and that most speciation events within Kerivoula occurred in the Pliocene or Pleistocene. These diversification events were perhaps driven by the expansion and contraction of forest habitat that occurred across the Sunda shelf region across this time (Anwarali Khan et al. 2010). One woolly bat species, K. africana, has been suggested to be extinct, but only because it's only ever been known from a single specimen (collected in Tanzania in 1878). The Miocene African bat Chamtwaria has been regarded as a close relative of Kerivoula.

Vesper bats with tubular nostrils: Murina and Harpiocephalus

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Another large vesper bat genus (it contains about 23 species) from this region of the tree is Murina, commonly termed the tube-nosed bats [adjacent photo shows M. suilla from Thailand, from Bumrungsi et al. (2006)]. As indicated by the name, the most notable thing about these bats is that their nostrils emerge at the ends of short fleshy tubes. Nasal tubes like this are more usually associated with megabats where they're present in the fruit bats Nyctimene and Paranyctimene (and short tubes are also present in Cynopterus). However, the Murina species aren't unique, as the closely related Harpiocephalus species also have such structures. Hairy-tailed bats (Lasiurus) and the Proboscis bat Rhynchonycteris naso (an emballonurid) also have soft-tissue nostril extensions of some sort. It's been proposed that tube-nosed fruit bats possess these tubular nostrils as they help keep the nostrils away from the mushy fruit consumed by these bats (Peterson 1966), but this can hardly apply to the insectivorous vesper and emballonurid bats. It seems that Murina bats eat insects and spiders, apparently gleaning them from leaves while using a slow, fluttering flight.

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Murina species occur across Asia, from southern Siberia to Indonesia and the Philippines, and in New Guinea and northern Australia as well. They have a thick, woolly pelt and range in fur colour from golden yellow through reddish and brownish to grey. Unsurprisingly for a group whose distribution centres across south-east Asia, a large number of new species have been described in the last few years from Vietnam, Cambodia and Taiwan; in fact, the number of recognised species has about doubled since the start of the century. Several Murina species are extremely poorly known: M. tenebrosa from Tsuschima Tsushima Island (Japan) and M. grisea from northern India, for example, are known only from their holotypes. The adjacent image (from Csorba et al. (2007)) shows the skulls of (top to bottom) M. tiensa from Vietnam, M. harrisoni from Cambodia, M. huttoni from India, and M. rozendaali from Malaysia.

The one or two Harpiocephalus bat species - sometimes called hairy-winged bats - inhabit tropical Asia and are said to prefer hilly, forested country. 'They' (read on) have thick, woolly fur like the tube-nosed Murina bats but differ from them in having more massive, blunter-cusped teeth. This seems to match with the fact that stomach contents have included beetle remains (Nowak 1999). While it's generally hypothesised that Murina and Harpiocephalus are sister-taxa, Agnarsson et al. (2011) found their one sampled Harpiocephalus species (labelled as H. mordax) to be nested within Murina. Also of interest is that these authors found a bat conventionally included within Myotis (M. cf. nipalensis kukunorensis) to be part of the kerivouline + murinine clade. This might be a mistake but deserves further study.

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The validity of H. mordax is controversial. Apparently, all the specimens ever discovered are female. Matveev (2005) argued that H. mordax is most likely synonymous with the only other currently recognised Harpiocephalus species, H. harpia (and some previous authors had regarded H. mordax as one of several H. harpia subspecies anyway). Circumstantial support for this view comes from a case where, in handled specimens of H. harpia, the smaller male was preliminarily identified as H. harpia while the larger female was identified as H. mordax (Matveev 2005). Females are not only bigger in these bats, they also have a proportionally longer rostrum, enlarged incisors and canines and a bigger sagittal crest. Incidentally, sexual dimorphism is common in vesper bats, with females typically being larger (Myers 1978). Most hypotheses invoked to explain this point to the advantages that pregnant or baby-carrying females might gain from their larger size, but there are other hypotheses too. The H. harpia shown here is from Matveev (2005).

The name 'hairy-winged bat' isn't especially helpful, by the way. Many bats possess at least some fur on their wing membranes, so the term 'hairy-winged bat' has been applied to various, distantly related and otherwise dissimilar species. It's perhaps best associated with the noctules, in particular with Leisler's bat Nyctalus leisleri. So, 'Hairy-winged tube-nosed bats' works better for the Harpiocephalus species.

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With bent-winged bats, Cistugo bats, and both kerivoulines and murinines out of the way, we'll start looking at vespertilionine vesper bats next. We begin with the large, widely distributed Myotis bats.

For previous Tet Zoo articles in the vesper bats series, see...

And for previous Tet Zoo articles on bats, see...

Refs - -

Agnarsson, I., Zambrana-Torrelio, C. M., Flores-Saldana, N. P. & May-Collado, L. J. 2011. A time-calibrated species-level phylogeny of bats (Chiroptera, Mammalia). PLoS Currents 011 February 4; 3: RRN1212. doi: 10.1371/currents.RRN1212.

Anwarali Khan, F. A., Solari, S., Swier, V. J., Larsen, P. A., Abdullah, M. T. & Baker, R. J. 2010. Systematics of Malaysian woolly bats (Vespertilionidae: Kerivoula) inferred from mitochondrial, nuclear, karyotypic, and morphological data. Journal of Mammalogy 91, 1058-1072.

Bickham, J. W., Patton, J. C., Schlitter, D. A., Rautenbach, I. L. & Honeycutt, R. L. 2004. Molecular phylogenetics, karyotypic diversity, and partition of the genus Myotis (Chiroptera: Vespertilionidae). Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution 33, 333-338.

Bumrungsri, S., Harrison, D. L., Satasook, C., Prajukjitr, A., Thong-Aree, S. & Bates, P. J. J. 2006. A review of bat research in Thailand with eight new species records for the country. Acta Chiropterologica 8, 325-359.

Csorba, G., Thong, V. D., Bates, P. J. J. & Furey, N. M. 2007. Description of a new species of Murina from Vietnam (Chiroptera: Vespertilionidae: Murininae). Occasional Papers, Museum of Texas Tech University 268, 1-9.

Francis, C. M., Kingston, T. & Zubaid, A. 2007. A new species of Kerivoula (Chiroptera: Vespertilionidae) from Peninsular Malaysia. Acta Chiropterologica 9, 1-12.

Kingdon, J. 1997. The Kingdon Field Guide to African Mammals. Academic Press, San Diego.

Lack, J. B., Roehrs, Z. P., Stanley, C. E. JR., Ruedi, M., & Van Den Bussche, R. A. (2010). Molecular phylogenetics of Myotis indicate familial-level divergence for the genus Cistugo (Chiroptera) Journal of Mammalogy, 91, 976-992

Matveev, V. A. 2005. Checklist of Cambodian bats (Chiroptera), with new records and remarks on taxonomy. Russian Journal of Theriology 4, 43-62.

Myers, P. 1978. Sexual dimorphism in size of vespertilionid bats. The American Naturalist 112, 701-711.

Nowak, R. M. 1999. Walker's Mammals of the World, Sixth Edition. The Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore and London.

Peterson, R. 1966. Silently, by Night: About the Little-Known but Fascinating World of Bats. Longman, London.

Rautenbach, I. L., Bronner, G. N. & Schlitter, D. A. 1993. Karyotypic data and attendant systematic implications for the bats of southern Africa. Koedoe 36, 87-104.

Schulz, M. 2000. Diet and foraging behaviour of the golden-tipped bat, Kerivoula papuensis: a spider specialist? Journal of Mammalogy 81, 948-957.

Seamark, E. C. J. & Kearney, T. C. 2006. New distribution of the Angolan wing-gland bat (Cistugo seabrae Thomas, 1912). African Bat Conservation News 7, 2-4.

Stadelmann, B., Jacobs, D. S., Schoeman, C. & Ruedi, M. 2004. Phylogeny of African Myotis bats (Chiroptera, Vespertilionidae) inferred from cytochrome b sequences. Acta Chiropterologica 6, 177-192.

Thomas, O. 1912. A new vespertilionine bat from Angola. Annals and Magazine of Natural History (Series 8) 10, 204-206.

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In the funnel-eared bat P. atrox, deep grooves run along the outside of its canines

Is it known what the function of those grooves is?

Tsuschima Island

Tsushima. (The type locality seems to be the same island near which the Battle of Tsushima was fought in 1905, during the Russo-Japanese War.)

Cistugidae or Cistuginidae?

By J.S. Lopes (not verified) on 21 Mar 2011 #permalink

Re: etymology of Cistugidae. I also thought that it didn't look right, but Lack et al (2010, pp. 981-982) state:-

Etymology.âCistugidae is derived from the genus Cistugo, and the family ending -idae (Article 29, International Code of Zoological NomenclatureâInternational Commission on Zoological Nomenclature 1999). The etymology of the genus Cistugo was not detailed by Thomas (1912).

And I note that similarly formatted names have recently been revised in style. 'Lorisidae', for example, is now Loridae I think. I've just noticed, however, that there's supposed to be Van Cakenberghe & Seamark (2008) article where 'Cistugoinae' is used. It would be interesting to know what the hell Cistugo means. Any ideas?

Thanks, that was an interesting video, even though the sequence with the bat (at about 06:04) was only about five seconds long :) The two badgers that feature in the movie are incredibly fat (at least, compared to the many British badgers I've seen).

Darren:

the sequence with the bat (at about 06:04) was only about five seconds long

There are two bat sequences in that video; the first one is from ca. 1.50 to 2.10 and shows a bat eating a peacock butterfly, in broad daylight (under circumstances that suggest staging).

The two badgers that feature in the movie are incredibly fat

Don't you dare get distracted, Dr. Naish! You started the vesper bat series, you finish the vesper bat series!

The etymology of the genus Cistugo was not detailed by Thomas (1912).

I guess it's an anagram or something, because it's not in the Perseus Dictionary nor in the dead-tree one here at home.

By David MarjanoviÄ (not verified) on 22 Mar 2011 #permalink

Hi. Does anybody know when Kerivoula africana was last seen, at all? Any help clarifying its conservation status would be very much appreciated. Thanks.

K. africana was thought possibly extinct until recently, and there are some 1999 (and even 2005) papers that list it as such. But it was actually rediscovered in or prior to 2000, as reported in...

Burgess, N. D., Kock, D., Cockle, A., FitzGibbon, C., Jenkins, P. & Honess, P. 2000. Mammals. In Burgess, N. D. & Clarke, G. P. (eds) Coastal forests of Eastern Africa. IUCN Forest Conservation Program. IUCN - The World Conservation Union, Gland & Cambridge, pp. 173-190.

It's apparently limited to the Genda Genda coastal forest (Morogoro) and the Tong'omba coastal forest in eastern Tanzania; nothing specific is known about population and it's thought to be in decline. There's lots more info in...

Aulagnier, S., Avenant, N., Benda, P., Haslauer, R., Hazevoet, C. J., Kearney, T., Kemp, A., Markotter, W., Seamark, E. C. J., Turni, H., Van Cakenberghe, V., Volleth, M. & Wendelen, W. 2010. African Chiroptera Report. African Chiroptera Project, Pretoria.

Darren: Ussuriland badgers have very long winter fur, as winter temperatures drop to -40C. They could also be tame and overfed, of course - I didn't ask if that was the case.
BTW, eastern badger is one of the animals painted incorrectly in HMW vol. 1 :-)

Dartian: I asked Vasily about this. He said that initially the bat would come for insects only at night, but eventually it got so tame that sometimes would fly down and take food even in daylight. That guy has enough amazing stories without making them up.

I'd expect Cistugo to have stem Cistugin- (hence Cistuginidae etc.), like ferrugo (the colour of rust). If it's a made-up word though, it ought* to be a matter for the first reviser to settle (within reason).

*No, didn't check the Code. Don't much care to anymore.

By John Scanlon, FCD (not verified) on 23 Mar 2011 #permalink

Wow, wish I'd known about this case when writing the article, thanks. So, Hardwicke's woolly bat Kerivoula hardwickii hardwickii has a mutualistic relationship with the south-east Asian pitcher Nepenthes rafflesiana. The bats roots within the pitchers, while the pitchers receive about one-third of their required nitrogen from the bats' droppings. Amazing. The paper was only published in January 2011, so again I can forgive myself for missing it until now...

Grafe, T. U., Schöner, C. R., Kerth, G., Junaidi, A. & Schöner, M. G. 2011. A novel resourceâservice mutualism between bats and pitcher plants. Biology Letters doi: 10.1098/rsbl.2010.1141

Nepenthes rafflesiana is polymorphic, it has five variant forms, and only one of these, the variety elongata has the stretched pitchers that the bats roost in.
That the plant involved has only reached varietal status might be saying something about how rapidly this mutualism has evolved.

In the other N. rafflesiana variants the pitchers are either too small to allow two bats to roost above the digestive fluid, or in the case of the giant form too wide for the bats to wedge themselves in.

LeeB.