- The Western Himalayas are residence to 53 bat species, accounting for 40% of the whole bat variety within the nation, in accordance with the not too long ago revised bat stock.
- The Himalayan long-tailed Myotis is a novel species described from Uttarakhand, belonging to the Myotis frater species complicated.
- The taxonomic evaluate additionally recorded the East Asian free-tailed bat for the primary time in India.
- The researchers delineated the Babu’s pipistrelle as a species distinct from the Javan Pipistrelle.
Primarily based on years of discipline analysis and re-examining museum specimens, a workforce of bat biologists has printed a taxonomic evaluate of bat variety in Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh. This revised stock of bats from the Western Himalayas includes 53 species in 24 genera and 7 households, representing a outstanding 40% of the whole 134 bat species identified from India.
The evaluate describes a brand new species, experiences a beforehand unrecorded species from India, and paperwork new locality information of a number of species, thereby including to our understanding of bat variety within the area.
Bat taxonomy is present process an evolution, in accordance with Uttam Saikia, one of many authors of the evaluate and a bat researcher with the Zoological Society of India. “Historically, bat taxonomy and species delineation concerned recording numerous morphological parameters of grownup specimens, coupled with measurement of the skull (cranium) and dental traits,” Saikia stated.
“Nonetheless, with the appearance of molecular instruments like DNA barcoding and the provision of ancillary knowledge reminiscent of echolocation name construction, taxonomists have taken an integrative strategy, whereby all of the related knowledge are mixed to make species distinctions extra strong,” he stated.
Printed within the Zootaxa journal, this taxonomic evaluate of bats from the Western Himalayas additionally adopts an “integrative strategy”, combining morphology, molecular genetics, and acoustics.
The seek for the long-tailed
The newly described bat species from Uttarakhand is the Himalayan long-tailed Myotis (Myotis himalaicus), which, because the title suggests, has a tail nearly so long as its physique. This species belongs to the Myotis frater complicated, a bunch of morphologically comparable bat species discovered throughout jap and central Asia. Myotis is without doubt one of the largest and most cosmopolitan genera of bats, comprising greater than 100 species worldwide.
“The primary time I caught this bat was in 2016,” stated Rohit Chakravarty, one of many authors of the evaluate and a bat researcher and conservationist with the Nature Conservation Basis. “Although it did appear totally different from the opposite bats I had caught, I didn’t have any suspicions [it was a novel species].”
Lengthy after finishing the fieldwork, whereas finding out its DNA sequence, it emerged that there was a big genetic divergence from different comparable species inside the Myotis frater complicated. Nonetheless, to substantiate it as a brand new species, researchers wanted a specimen to check the morphological and anatomical traits. It took Chakravarty and workforce 5 years to catch one other specimen and “put all of the items of the puzzle collectively.”
In 2021, when Chakravarty lastly caught the bat, he knew instantly that his lengthy search had come to an finish. Over time, dealing with totally different species of Myotis from the Himalayas, Chakravarty may inform the specimen was heavier (by 2-3 grams) than different Myotis discovered within the area, and it had a particular naked patch across the eye.
With a research specimen, they have been capable of set up its distinct taxonomic standing as a novel species, in accordance with Saikia. “As we investigated the specimen intently, we discovered a collection of morphological, cranial, dental, and baculum (a bone within the penis present in sure mammals) traits distinctive to the species,” he stated.
Upon analyzing outdated museum specimens, the researchers got here throughout a really comparable specimen in a group from the Hungarian Pure Historical past Museum. It was an grownup feminine collected by G. Csorba and L. Ronkay on July 22, 1998, in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan — about 700 km to the west of Uttarakhand.
Since each specimens have been externally and cranially indistinguishable, and have been caught from the identical steady montane forests within the Himalayas, the researchers concluded that each belong to the identical species.
The distinctive biogeography of the Himalayas
The Himalayas are biogeographically very fascinating, in accordance with Chakravarty. They’re comparatively younger mountains, fashioned from the collision of the Indian and Eurasian tectonic plates. They fall within the transition zone between the Oriental and Palearctic zoogeographic realms, and due to this fact shares faunal parts of each.
Till now, the free-tailed bat species recognised in India was the European free-tailed bat (Tadarida teniotis). However the latest discovery of the East Asian free-tailed bat (Tadarida insignis) within the Oriental area led the analysis workforce to query which of the 2 species is present in India.
“It bought us pondering. India is correct in the midst of these two locations, what’s the bat that we’ve got right here?” Chakravarty stated.
Free-tailed bats fly very excessive above the bottom, making them not possible to catch them. Nonetheless, curiously, free-tailed bats name at very low frequencies that fall inside the audible vary. The workforce was in a position to make use of a Bluetooth speaker to broadcast calls at their website within the Kedarnath Wildlife Sanctuary and efficiently captured a specimen. Upon genetic examination, their speculation proved appropriate, and the workforce recorded the East Asian free-tailed bat for the primary time in India.
Equally, the analysis workforce delineated the Babu’s pipistrelle (Pipistrellus babu) from the Javan pipistrelle (Pipistrellus javanicus). Very comparable, small bats, beforehand, they have been thought to belong to the identical species. “Contemplating the massive geographic distances between their kind localities (locality from the place the species have been initially described), we examined specimens from the Himalayas and located distinct morphological and anatomical characters that convincingly separated the 2 species,” Saikia stated.
The taxonomic evaluate additionally detailed first occurrences of the Japanese larger horseshoe bat, Savi’s pipistrelle and Mandelli’s mouse-eared bat within the Western Himalayas for the primary time.
The way forward for bat taxonomy
The Himalayan long-tailed Myotis highlights the Western Himalayas as an essential centre of endemism, in accordance with Chelmala Srinivasulu, Professor on the Division of Zoology, Osmania College, Hyderabad. “Species that seem comparable morphologically are sometimes genetically distinct as a result of isolation in complicated terrain,” he stated.
“We’ve solely scratched the floor of bat variety within the Western Himalayas,” Srinivasulu added. Chakravarty additionally agreed that bats stay an undiscovered group within the Himalayas, and there’s a lot extra to find.
“The Himalayas as a complete is an undersampled area by way of bat variety, and the precedence ought to be in depth surveys for contemporary specimen assortment and evaluation,” Saikia stated.
Nonetheless, discipline entry and logistics in distant Himalayan areas proceed to pose challenges, in accordance with Srinivasulu. “Capability constructing by way of skilled taxonomists, bio-acousticians, and molecular ecologists continues to be wanted in lots of components of India,” he stated.
“Within the subsequent decade, India may change into a world hotspot for chiropteran systematics and evolutionary ecology, supplied enough institutional and funding help is made accessible to bat researchers,” Srinivasulu concluded.
Learn extra: Automating bat detection for extra environment friendly monitoring and knowledge assortment
Banner picture: The East Asian free-tailed bat (Tadarida insignia) was not too long ago recorded for the primary time in India. Picture by Rohit Chakravarty.
