Murina walstoni Furey, Csorba and Son 2011

Francis, Charles M. & Eger, Judith L., 2012, A review of tube-nosed bats (Murina) from Laos with a description of two new species, Acta Chiropterologica 14 (1), pp. 15-38 : 29

publication ID	https://doi.org/ 10.3161/150811012X654231
DOI	https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.4329633
persistent identifier	https://treatment.plazi.org/id/16319E21-FFD5-FF9C-68AF-FEE4FB121503
treatment provided by	Felipe
scientific name	Murina walstoni Furey, Csorba and Son 2011
status

Treatment

Murina walstoni Furey, Csorba and Son 2011 View in CoL

( Figs. 3g View FIG , 4g View FIG , 5g View FIG , 6a View FIG ; Tables 1 View TABLE , 2; Map Fig. 2b View FIG )

Murina View in CoL CMF sp. A: Francis et al. 2010: 6.

Specimens examined from Laos

ROM: 7 ♂♂, 9 ♀♀; SMF: 2 ♂♂ (see Appendix for details, including information from adjacent countries and the literature).

Description

The dorsal fur is long and woolly. The hairs have bases that are white for about 70% of their length with brown to orange-brown tips; some of the longer hairs are pale to the tip, giving a slightly shiny appearance in bright light. The overall colour of the upperparts varies among individuals, ranging from mid-brown to orange-brown ( Fig. 6a View FIG ). The ventral fur is pure white, from the base to the tips, though some individuals have a slightly greyish tinge, while others have a buffy tinge. The wing and tail membranes are dark brown, and the ears are mid-brown. Unlike most Murina spp., the upper surface of the wing membranes and interfemoral membrane is nearly naked, except near the body where there is a moderate density of long brownish hairs. On the interfemoral membrane, moderately dense hairs are found only on the proximal 15–35% (measured along the length of the tail), getting shorter and sparser farther away from the body. The forearm appears largely naked, with only very short, sparse inconspicuous hairs. The wing membrane inserts on the side of the foot, about 1 mm from the claw. The ear is notched on the posterior border and the tragus is narrow, about half the length of the ear, bluntly pointed with a notch at the base. The tail protrudes about 1 mm beyond the interfemoral membrane. A thickened calcar extends about 40% of the distance from the foot to the tail tip along the edge of the interfemoral membrane.

The skull has an elevated braincase with a deep rostral depression and a thickened rostrum ( Fig. 3g View FIG ). The anterior upper premolar (P 2) is small, about half the height and half the surface area of the posterior premolar (P 4); the inner upper incisor (I 2) is similar in height to, and slightly anterior to the outer incisor (I 3) and the toothrows are markedly convergent anteriorly ( Fig. 4g View FIG ). In these characters, it thus fits within the morphological group defined by Hill and Francis (1984) that includes M. suilla . The upper canine (C 1) is narrow, slightly longer than P 4. The large upper molars (M 1, M 2) have well developed cusps with a distinct W-shape. On the mandible, the canine (C 1) is noticeably taller than the posterior premolar (P 4), while the anterior premolar (P 2) is about 2/3 the height of P 4.

Discussion

This species is readily distinguished from all oth- er Murina currently known from Indochina based on the combination of dental characters, fur colour and the relatively sparsely haired wing and tail membranes. It matches well the description of M. walstoni recently described from Cambodia in Csorba et al. (2011).

DNA barcodes for nine specimens are available through Genbank ( HM540957 View Materials – HM540964 View Materials ), as well as through BOLD. The DNA barcodes were analysed by Francis et al. (2010; see their figure 4) under the label ‘ Murina CMF sp. A’. The neighbourjoining tree suggests that the closest relative, among southeast Asian Murina examined to date, is M. suilla , with a bootstrap support of 91% for the branching order ( Francis et al., 2010). Nevertheless it differs by about 13% from the most similar M. suilla examined, including specimens from both Borneo ( Francis et al., 2010) and peninsular Thailand (C. M. Francis, unpublished data), both of which are relatively similar to each other.

Distribution and ecology

Most of the specimens we captured in Laos were in the extreme south, in seasonally dry, semi-deciduous forests, or in sparse, disturbed forests in the lowlands. We also captured some individuals in heavily disturbed, relatively open seasonally dry forest north of Vientiane. These records all suggest this species uses more open, drier habitats than most other Murina . The single Vietnamese record was in highly disturbed open habitat.