Comments on: The Race: A New Mammal for Principe!

By: bob

bob — Wed, 27 Oct 2010 18:26:47 +0000

Thanks, Jakob,
I have not seen the Bergmans work, but Javier Juste and I have been in contact for a couple of years.
I will check his Miniopterus paper again, but I believe in this paper, and also in the earlier Juste & Ibanez, they continue to refer to the endemic bats as subspecies. I do not recall them elevating M. newtoni to full species level; however, regardless of taxonomic status, what is most exciting to me about the Miniopterus paper is the fact that the island bats in this group appear to be genetically most closely related to East and Central African populations. This is a pattern that continues to pop up in many of the island groups.

Bob

By: Jakob Fahr

Jakob Fahr — Wed, 27 Oct 2010 16:14:22 +0000

Thanks, Bob. There is no question that Chaerephon tomensis and Myonycteris brachycephala are proper species – they are morphologically very distinct from their mainland sister taxa, see for example:

Bergmans, W., 1997. Taxonomy and biogeography of African fruit bats (Mammalia, Megachiroptera). 5. The genera Lissonycteris Andersen, 1912, Myonycteris Matschie, 1899 and Megaloglossus Pagenstecher, 1885; general remarks and conclusions; annex: Key to all species. Beaufortia 47(2): 11-90.
Juste B., J. & Ibáñez, C., 1993a. A new Tadarida of the subgenus Chaerephon (Chiroptera: Molossidae) from São Tomé Island, Gulf of Guinea (West Africa). J. Mamm. 74(4): 901-907.

Samples of Miniopterus newtoni from Sao Tome (rather than minor as erroneously stated in my first reply) have been genetically tested and found to be very different from mainland Miniopterus minor:

Juste B., J., Ferrández, A., Fa, J. E., Masefield, W. & Ibáñez, C., 2007. Taxonomy of little bent-winged bats (Miniopterus, Miniopteridae) from the African islands of São Tomé, Grand Comoro and Madagascar, based on mtDNA. Acta Chiropterologica 9(1): 27-37.

The status of Hipposideros thomensis needs to be properly assessed but is currently considered as a distinct species by the latest edition of “Mammal Species of the World”.

Cheers, Jakob

By: bob

bob — Tue, 26 Oct 2010 16:44:11 +0000

Thanks, Jakob. I know about the other species and have a copy of the bat report of Rainho et al. I am hesitant about accepting species-level status of these until they are tested genetically, as we did with the shrew, and which was just done with the Pipistrellus.
thanks for your comment… I know your work.

By: Jakob Fahr

Jakob Fahr — Tue, 26 Oct 2010 08:29:14 +0000

Thanks for the nice blog. Re endemic mammals species: the shrew and the pipistrelle are not the only endemic mammal species on both islands – Sao Tomé actually has 4 endemic bat species (Myonycteris brachycephala, Hipposideros thomensis, Miniopterus minor, and Chaerephon tomensis) and 1 endemic subspecies (Rousettus aegyptiacus tomensis) out of a total of 10 bat species. Principe has 1 endemic species (the “pipistrelle” Neoromicia referred to in the blog) plus 1 endemic subspecies (Rousettus aegyptiacus princeps) out of a total of 4 bat species.