Vespertilio, LINNAEUS, 1758

Rosina, Valentina V. & Rummel, Michael, 2017, The New Early Miocene Bat Records From The Molasse Sites Of South Germany, Fossil Imprint 73 (3 - 4), pp. 227-235 : 230

cf. Vespertilio (sp. n.)

Text-fig. 1b

M a t e r i a l a n d m e a s u r e m e n t s. Rembach, BSP 1959 XXVIII630-2, the right C sup. 0.93 × 0.78 × 1.60.

D e s c r i p t i o n. The upper canine is small and slender; triangular in cross-section with a damaged lingual cingulum. The crown has a well-developed concave disto-lingual face, and only the lingual and distal crests. The anterolingual cingulum is well developed and forms a narrow lingual talon.

C o m p a r i s o n. It exhibits all features typical for vespertilionid bats, and shares the most typical features of upper canines of Vespertilio and Nyctalus species: 1) triangular cross-section; 2) a wide concave distolingual face; 3) appearance of the lingual and distal crests only; 4) an expansion of the anterolingual part of the cingulum, which forms a narrow thickening. Unfortunately, part of the lingual cingulum of the Rembach fossil is damaged, so the presence of small cuspids on its anterolingual part, as in Vespertilio , is obscured. The Rembach upper canine differs from those of Miostrellus , due to the presence of a visible expansion of the lingual cingulum, and in a more concave lingual face of the crown (e.g., compare with Rachl 1983: 229, fig. 70c).

The upper canine of Nyctalus shows a more developed anterolingual thickening of the cingulum, and frequently tends to have a second tip on the cutting edge of its crown. The fossil upper canine of Rembach does not share these morphological traits, but shows most of the above-listed morphological features of Vespertilio . If this Rembach specimen would indeed belong to that clade, then it would represent by far the oldest record of the genus. The few other fossil records of Vespertilio s. str. are much younger. Besides the Pliocene records (V. villanyiensis HORÁČEK, 1997, Villány 3, Hungary, MN 17; Horáček 1997) and China ( V. sinensis (PETERS, 1880) , Bilike, Inner Mongolia, China, ~MN 14; Qiu and Storch 2000), a single dentary fragment of V. cf. villanyiensis was described from the Late Turolian of Russia (MN 12–13, Morskaya 2; Rossina et al. 2006), and several isolated teeth ( Rosina and Sinitsa 2014: 156, fig. 3) from the Late Turolian of Ukraine (MN 12, Egorovka 1, Palievo) were reported. All these fossil forms are considerably larger than the fossil from Rembach (compare with Rosina and Sinitsa 2014: 154, tab. 2).

Figures

Text-fig. 1. a – cf. Hesperoptenus (sp. n.), right M1, BSP 1959 XXVIII630-1, Rembach, occlusal view; b – cf. Vespertilio (sp. n.), right C sup., BSP 1959XXVIII630-2, Rembach; c – Submyotodon petersbuchensis, fragment of right dentary with m3, BSP 1959 XXVIII630-3, Rembach, occlusal view; d – Miostrellus (sp. n.), left m3, BSP 1959 XXVII-Ch10, Forsthart, occlusal view; e – Miostrellus (sp. n.), right M1, BSP 1959 XXVII-Ch1, Forsthart, occlusal view; f – Miostrellus cf. risgoviensis, right M2, BSP 1959 XXVII-Ch2, Forsthart, occlusal view; g – Miostrellus (sp. n.), left M3, BSP 1959 XXVII-Ch3, Forsthart, occlusal view; h – Myotis sp., left m1, BSP 1959 XXVII-Ch9, Forsthart, occlusal view; i – Miostrellus cf. risgoviensis, right C sup., BSP 1959 XXVII- Ch8, Forsthart; j – M. cf. risgoviensis, right C sup., BSP 1959 XXVII-Ch7, Forsthart; k – cf. Miostrellus sp., right C sup., BSP 1959XXVII-Ch4, Forsthart; l – Myotis sp., left C sup., BSP 1959 XXVII-Ch5, Forsthart; m – Miostrellus (sp. n.), right C sup., BSP 1959 XXVII-Ch6, Forsthart; 1 – lingual view, 2 – occlusal view.