A new species of woolly horseshoe bat has been described from Sabah, Malaysian Borneo.
The Francis’ woolly horseshoe bat (Rhinolophus francisi). Image credit: Natural History Museum, London.
The new species belongs to the bat genus Rhinolophus, the single extant genus in the family Rhinolophidae.
Members of this genus typically have a horseshoe-shaped, leaf-like structure on their nose, earning them the common name ‘horseshoe bats.’
The bats use this structure to focus the sound of their echolocation calls, which are used for navigation and finding food, according to an international team of scientists, including Dr Roberto Portela Miguez from the Natural History Museum, London, UK.
The name of the newly discovered Rhinolophus species – the Francis’ woolly horseshoe bat (Rhinolophus francisi) – honors Dr Charles M. Francis, a scientist who collected the type specimen of the new species in Malaysia in 1983.
“The new species is currently known from only six records; with two records in Sabah, Malaysian Borneo; three in Indonesian Borneo (Kalimantan) and a single record in Thailand,” Dr Portela Miguez and his colleagues said.
“The species may be distributed more widely in these regions, but has been rarely captured despite extensive surveys. Genetic data also suggest that this species is likely to occur in Vietnam, although this needs to be confirmed.”
The team also discovered Rhinolophus francisi thailandicus, a subspecies of the Francis’ woolly horseshoe bat, in the jungles of Thailand.
“New species for groups like insects and fishes are discovered fairly regularly, but new mammals are rarer,” Dr Portela Miguez said.
“This is a reminder of how much we still have to discover about the natural world.”
Research describing the Francis’ woolly horseshoe bat and its subspecies is published online in the journal Acta Chiropterologica.
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Pipat Soisook et al. 2015. Description of a New Species of the Rhinolophus trifoliatus-Group (Chiroptera: Rhinolophidae) from Southeast Asia. Acta Chiropterologica 17 (1): 21-36; doi: 10.3161/15081109ACC2015.17.1.002
