Journal of Threatened Taxa | www.threatenedtaxa.org | 26 September 2016 | 8(11): 9371–9374

 

 

 

 

 

 

First record of Dobson’s Long-tongued Fruit Bat Eonycteris spelaea (Dobson, 1871) (Mammalia: Chiroptera: Pteropodidae) from Kerala, India

 

P.O. Nameer 1, R. Ashmi 2, Sachin K. Aravind 3 & R. Sreehari 4

 

1,2,3,4 Centre for Wildlife Studies, College of Forestry, Kerala Agricultural University, Thrissur, Kerala 680656, India

2 Current address: Tranumparken 18, Brøndby Strand, Copenhagen 2660, Denmark

4 Current address: Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Menglun, Mengla, Yunnan 666303, China

1 nameer.po@kau.in (corresponding author), 2 ashmiramachandran@gmail.com, 3 sachinkaravind@gmail.com, 4 sree.forestry@gmail.com

 

 

 

 

 

doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.11609/jott.2496.8.11.9371-9374 | ZooBank: urn:lsid:zoobank.org:pub:069AD0FB-E41B-4224-B6D2-954A32F16B92

 

Editor: Paul Racey, University of Exeter, UK. Date of publication: 26 September 2016 (online & print)

 

Manuscript details: Ms # 2496 | Received 30 March 2016 | Final received 06 September 2016 | Finally accepted 10 September 2016

 

Citation: Nameer, P.O., R. Ashmi, S.K. Aravind & R. Sreehari (2016). First record of Dobson’s Long-tongued Fruit Bat Eonycteris spelaea (Dobson, 1871) (Mammalia: Chiroptera: Pteropodidae) from Kerala, India. Journal of Threatened Taxa 8(11): 9371-9374; http://dx.doi.org/10.11609/jott.2496.8.11.9371-9374

 

Copyright: © Nameer et al. 2016. Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. JoTT allows unrestricted use of this article in any medium, reproduction and distribution by providing adequate credit to the authors and the source of publication.

 

Funding: Kerala Agricultural University.

 

Conflict of Interest: The authors declare no competing interests.

 

Acknowledgements: Dr. Lawrence Heaney of the Field Museum of Natural History (FMNH) confirmed the identity of the species and Dr. Neelesh Dahanukar of IISER, Pune offered useful suggestions for the molecular analysis. We thank the Chief Wildlife Warden, Kerala for granting permission to study the bats of Parambikulam Tiger Reserve (Permit Number - WL10-452/2011). We also thank the Wildlife Warden, Asst. Wildlife Warden, PkTR for the logistical support. Our appreciation and thanks to Sreenidasan and Vijayan, for the assistance in the field. The Dean, College of Forestry, Kerala Agricultural University is acknowledged for the encouragement.

 

 

 

 

The fruit bats of the family Pteropodidae are an ancient and diverse group of bats, distributed throughout the tropical regions of Africa, Asia and Indo-Australia (Hill & Smith 1984). The fruit bats account for 182 species in 42 genera (Simmons 2005; Wilson & Mittermeier 2009) in the World. India has 13 species of fruit bats in eight genera (Nameer 2000; Menon 2014; Johnsingh & Nameer 2015). As the name indicates, their diet is composed of fruits, flowers, pollen and nectar.

Indian pteropodids belong to the genera Rousettus, Pteropus, Cynopterus, Megaerops, Latidens, Sphaerias, Macroglossus and Eonycteris. Out of these eight, only three genera were previously recorded in Kerala State: Rousettus, Pteropus and Cynopterus. Here we report the presence of Dobson’s Long-tongued Fruit Bat Eonycteris spelaea, for the first time from Kerala. This is the only species of the genus Eonycteris Dobson, 1873, known from India.

Dobson’s Long-tongued Fruit Bat Eonycteris spelaea was initially known only from Myanmar, Thailand, Laos, Vietnam, Cambodia, Malaysia, Indonesia and Philippines (Blanford 1891; Ellerman & Morrison-Scott 1951). In India Eonycteris spelaea was reported only in 1967 from the Kumaon Hills, now in Uttarakhand State (Bhat 1968). Subsequently, this species was also reported from other Indian states and union territories such as Assam (Ghose & Bhattacharya 1974) Andaman & Nicobar Islands (Bhattacharya 1975), Karnataka (Bhat et al. 1980), Sikkim (Mistry, 1991), Nagaland (Sinha 1994), Meghalaya (Das et al. 1995), and Andhra Pradesh (Bates & Harrison 1997).

Materials and Methods: The study was conducted at the Parambikulam Tiger Reserve (PkTR), which is situated in Palghat District, Kerala, India, within the Anamalai Hills and borders the Nelliyampathy Hills (76035’–76050’E & 10020’–10026’N) of the southern Western Ghats. The total extent of PkTR is 643.66km2. The major vegetation types are west coast tropical evergreen forests, west coast tropical semi-evergreen forests, southern moist deciduous forests, southern dry deciduous forests, bamboo and reed patches and southern montane wet temperate forests (sholas). The altitude of PkTR ranges from 300m to 1438m. PkTR has three man-made reservoirs, namely Parambikulam, Thunacadavu and Peruvaripallam, whose cumulative surface water area amounts to 2066ha (Anonymous 2011).

The bats were captured and handled in the field following approved guidelines of the American Society of Mammalogists (Sikes et al. 2011). Mist nets of various sizes (height 2.4m, length 12m, and mesh size 15x15 mm) were employed to capture the bats.

Morphometric measurements: The following external and cranio-dental measurements were taken using a digital caliper (Mitutoyo) to the nearest 0.1mm as illustrated by Bates & Harrison (1997). The measurements taken include head and body length (HBL), forearm length (FAL), ear length (EL), tail length (TL), hind foot length (HFL), wingspan (WSP), and tibia length (TIB). The cranial measurements taken were: greatest length of the skull (GTL), condylocanine length (CCL), maxillary tooth row (C-M3), mandibular tooth row (C-M3), mandible length (M), zygomatic breadth (ZB) and breadth of the braincase (BB). Body mass (BM) was taken in the field using a Light Line spring balance (PESOLA, Switzerland).

Molecular studies: For molecular studies, DNA was isolated from tissue collected from the bat using the phenol-chloroform extraction method (Sambrook et al. 1989). The primers with sequence 5’-CCHCCATAAATAGGNGAAGG-3’ (forward) and 5’-WAGAAYTTCAGCTTTGGG-3’ (reverse) were used for amplifying the Cytochrome b (Cyt-b) DNA fragments (Naidu et al. 2012) in the polymerase chain reaction (PCR). The purified PCR products were sequenced using ABI prism 3730 sequencer (Applied Biosystems, USA) and big dye terminator sequencing kit (ABI Prism, USA). Sequences were analyzed by BLAST tool (Altschul et al. 1990).

Results and Discussion: Three individuals of Dobson’s Long-tongued Fruit Bat Eonycteris spelaea were caught in mist nets. These include one adult male and one adult female which were collected from Poopara (10°21’14.9”N & 76°48’52.3”E) at an elevation of 840m on 25 May 2011 and one male from Kuriarkutty (10°24’26.8”N & 76°43’10.2”E) at an elevation of 504m on 15 March 2012 in PkTR. The morphometric details of these bats are given in Table 1. These bats had an average forearm length of 75.0 mm (SD=2.41), head to body length of 92.2 mm (SD=6.96), tail length of 14.8mm (SD=0.34), hind foot length of 17.9mm (SD=2.51), ear length of 19.3 mm (SD=0.32) and a body mass of 70.3g (SD=12.85). The wing span of the bats caught at PkTR was considerably less than the range recorded elsewhere in India by Bates & Harrison (1997).

Dobson’s Long-tongued Fruit Bat Eonycteris spelaea (Dobson, 1871) is a medium-sized fruit bat. It resembles Rousettus leschenaulti but differs in the absence of the claw on the first finger. One striking morphological character of Eonycteris spelaea is a large kidney shaped gland on either side of the anal opening (Image 1). The pelage is short and velvety, dark brown above, paler on the back of the head and shoulders. The underside is mottled grey-brown. The muzzle and the tibiae are naked. The wing membranes are uniformly dark brown, and the forearm is moderately hairy below (Bates & Harrison 1997).

Molecular data for the specimens of Eonycteris spelaea from the PkTR have been deposited in GenBank (National Centre for Biotechnology Information, NCBI) with accession number JN627514.1.

The present finding of this species from Kerala is the first report of Eonycteris spelaea from Kerala and the second one from the Western Ghats. The previous record from the Western Ghats was from Karnataka (Bhat et al. 1980). The updated distribution map of Eonycteris spelaea is given in Fig. 1.

 

 

 

 

References

Altschul, S.F., W. Gish, W. Miller, E.W. Myers & D.J. Lipman (1990). Basic local alignment search tool. Journal of Molecular Biology 215: 403–410.

Anonymous (2011). Management Plan for Parambikulam Tiger Reserve (2011–2021). Kerala Forest Department, Thiruvanathapuram, 282pp.

Bates, P.J.J. & D.L. Harrison (1997). Bats of the Indian sub-continent. Harrison Zoological Museum Publications, London, 258pp.

Bhat, H.R. (1968). Dobson’s Long-nosed Fruit Bat Eonycteris spelaea (Dobson), from Kumaon Hills, U.P, an addition to the Chiropteran fauna of India. Journal of the Bombay Natural History Society 64: 550–551.

Bhat, H.R., M.A. Sreenivasan & P.G. Jacob (1980). Breeding cycle of Eonycteris spelaea (Dobson, 1871), (Chiroptera, Pteropodidae, Macroglossinae), in India. Mammalia 44: 343–347.

Bhattacharyya, T.P. (1975). Occurrence of Dobson’s Long-tounged Fruit Bat, Eonycteris spelaea (Dobson) (Mammalia, Chiroptera, Pteropodae) in Andaman Islands, India. Science and Culture 41: 317–318.

Blanford, W.T. (1891). The Fauna of British India, including Ceylon and Burma. Mammalia, Part II. London, 617pp.

Das, P.K., R.K. Ghose, T.K. Chakraborty, T.P. Bhattacharyya & M.K. Ghosh (1995). Mammalia, pp. 23–128. In: Director, ZSI (ed.). State Fauna Series 4: Fauna of Meghalaya, Part 1. Zoological Survey of India, Calcutta.

Ellerman, J.R. & T.C.S. Morrison-Scott (1951). Checklist of Palaearctic and Indian Mammals 1758 to 1946. British Museum (Natural History), London, UK.

Ghose, R.K. & T.P. Bhattacharyya (1974). The occurrence of Dobson’s Long-tounged Fruit Bat, Eonycteris spelaea (Dobson), in Assam, India. Journal of the Zoological Society of India 26(1–2): 151–152.

Hill, J.E. & J.D. Smith (1984). Bats: A Natural History. University of Texas Press, Austin, 243pp.

Johnsingh, A.J.T. & P.O. Nameer (2015). Introduction to mammals of South Asia, pp. 33–64. In: Johnsingh, A.J.T & N. Manjrekar (eds.). Mammals of South Asia. Vol. II. The University Press, 614+lxviii pp.

Mistry, S. (1991). Ecology of frugivorous and nectarivorous bats from India. Bat Research News 31: 80.

Naidu, A., R.R. Fitak, A. Munguia-Vega & A. Culver (2012). Novel primers for complete mitochondrial cytochrome b gene sequencing in mammals. Molecular Ecology Resources 12: 191–196.

Nameer, P.O. (2000). Checklist of Indian Mammals. Kerala Forest Department, Thiruvanathapuram, 90pp.

Menon, V. (2014). Indian Mammals. A Field Guide. Hachette Publishers, India, 528p.

Sambrook, E., F. Fritsch & T. Maniatis (1989). Molecular Cloning. Cold Spring Harbor Press, Cold Spring Harbor, New York.

Sikes, R.S., W.L. Gannon & Animal Care and Use Committee of the American Society of Mammalogists (2011). Guidelines of the American Society of Mammalogists for the use of wild mammals in research. Journal of Mammalogy 92: 235–253.

Simmons, N.B. (2005). Order Chiroptera, pp. 312–365. In: Wilson, D.E. & D.M. Reeder (eds.). Mammal Species of the World: A Taxonomic and Geographic Reference (3rd Edition). The Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, 743pp.

Sinha, Y.P. (1994). Occurrence of Dobson’s Long-Tongued Fruit Bat Eonycteris spleae (Dobson, 1871) in Manipur and Nagaland, India. Geobis New Reports 13: 186–187.

Wilson, D.E. & R.A. Mittermeier (2009). Handbook of the Mammals of the World. Lynx, Barcelona, 727pp.