Lophostoma silvicolum d’Orbigny, 1836

Velazco, Paúl M. & Patterson, Bruce D., 2019, Small Mammals Of The Mayo River Basin In Northern Peru, With The Description Of A New Species Of Sturnira (Chiroptera: Phyllostomidae), Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History 2019 (429), pp. 1-69 : 19

Lophostoma silvicolum d’Orbigny, 1836

VOUCHER MATERIAL: Waqanki: 1 adult male ( FMNH 203542 ) ; see table 9 for measurements.

IDENTIFICATION: Descriptions and measurements of Lophostoma silvicolum have been provided by Swanepoel and Genoways (1979), Baker et al. (2004), Velazco and Cadenillas (2011), and Velazco and Gardner (2012). Currently three subspecies are recognized: L. s. centralis (eastern Honduras to Costa Rica), L. s. laephotis (Guianas to the lower Amazon basin of Brazil), and L. s. silvicolum ( Panama through South America east of the Andes, in Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Paraguay, Peru, and Venezuela) ( Williams and Genoways, 2008; Velazco and Cadenillas, 2011). L. silvicolum is distinguished from other species in the genus by the following combination of characteristics: large size (FA> 45 mm, GLS> 4 mm); brown to gray ventral fur; strong indentation present on the lingual cingulum of the upper canine; and M1 hypocone moderately to well developed ( Velazco and Gardner, 2012).

Velazco and Cadenillas (2011) analyzed cytochrome b sequences from all Lophostoma species , including our specimen (FMNH 203542). The specimens of L. silvicolum recovered from different localities throughout its range grouped into three clades. One of these clades was sister to L. evotis and contained specimens from Panama, Venezuela, eastern Ecuador, and eastern Peru (Mayo River basin). However, after reviewing more than 250 specimens of L. silvicolum throughout its entire distribution, Velazco and Cadenillas (2011) could not find a clear morphological or morphometric pattern that matched either the three molecular clades or the traditionally recognized subspecies. Before resolving this problem by making a taxonomic decision to either recognize the three subspecies as full species or, alternatively, lump the three subspecies and L. evotis together into one species, we believe that it is necessary to analyze nuclear and additional mitochondrial markers. Accordingly, here we simply refer our specimen to L. silvicolum as traditionally recognized. Our specimen conforms with previous descriptions and exhibits all the diagnostic characteristic of the species, and its measurements fall within the range previously documented for the species.