Bravo! More Murina Species from Southeast Asia

Joe Chun-Chia Huang — Thu, 30 Jan 2014 17:58:09 +0000

A back-to-back discovery of new Murina species is reported from Thailand by the end of 2013. Guillen’s Tube-nosed bat, M. guilleni, is the twentieth new species of the genus described in the past eight years. This small orange-brown bat is named after Antonio Guillen-Servent, who first collected the species. Murina guilleni is very similar to M. cyclotis and M. fionae externally but can be distinguished by its general smaller size, bacula shape, and differentiation in DNA barcodes. The authors also suggest M. peninsularis as a valid full species, which was formerly recognized as a subspecies of M. cyclotis from South Thailand, Peninsular Malaysia, Borneo, and Sumatra. This exciting finding is published by five SEABCRU committee and their collaborators from several Southeast Asia countries. The research highlights the significance of SEABCRU’s taxonomic network in facilitating our understanding of the cryptic diversity of Southeast Asia bats.

Original citation: Soisook, P., S. Karapan, C. Satassok, V. Dinh Thong, F. A. A. Khan, I. Maryanto, G. Csorba, N. Furey, B. Aul, and P. J. J. Bates. 2013. A review of the Murina cyclotis complex (Chiroptera: Vespertilionidae) with descriptions of a new species and subspecies. Acta Chiropterologica, 15(2): 271-292.

Note from Tigga: There was some great coverage of the M. balaensis discove ry in Thailand – here and in the Bangkok Post last week. Excellent stuff!

A new Tube-nosed bat from Thailand

Joe Chun-Chia Huang — Tue, 17 Dec 2013 23:19:16 +0000

Murina balaensis

A new Murina species, Murina balaensis, is recently described from Thailand by two SEABCRU committee members, Pipat Soisook and Paul Bates, and their colleagues. M. balaensis is a small bat of the suilla species group. It is most similar to M. eleryi from Vietnam and Lao PDR., but can be distinguished by several morphological traits and an 8% difference in the barcode COI. M. balaensis is the 19th species of the genus new to science in the last eight years. The species name balaensis refers to the locality of type specimen, Bala forest in Thailand. This exciting finding is published in the latest issue of Zootaxa.

Citation: Pipat Soisook, Sunate Karapan, Chutamas Satasook, and Paul J. J. Bates. 2013. A new species of Murina (Mammalia: Chiroptera: Vespertilionidae) from peninsular Thailand. Zootaxa 3746 (4): 567–579.

SEABCRU » Murina

Bravo! More Murina Species from Southeast Asia

A new Tube-nosed bat from Thailand