Rhinophylla fischerae Carter, 1966

Velazco, Paúl M., Voss, Robert S., Fleck, David W. & Simmons, Nancy B., 2021, Mammalian Diversity And Matses Ethnomammalogy In Amazonian Peru Part 4: Bats, Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History 2021 (451), pp. 1-201 : 87-88

Rhinophylla fischerae Carter, 1966

Figure 22A

VOUCHER MATERIAL (TOTAL = 14): Estación Biológica Madre Selva (MUSM 31584, 31585), Jenaro Herrera (AMNH 278505; CEBIOMAS 107;

MUSM 5550), Nuevo San Juan (AMNH 272803, 272822, 272830; MUSM 13243, 13244), Quebrada Betilia (MUSA 15162, 15163), Quebrada Lobo (MUSA 15131), Quebrada Sábalo (MUSA 15234); see table 37 for measurements.

UNVOUCHERED OBSERVATIONS: An unspecified number of individuals of Rhinophylla fischerae were captured at Anguila during the Tapiche- Blanco Rapid Biological Inventory (Escobedo- Torres, 2015). Additionally, we captured two individuals at Frog Valley on 17 February 2019.

IDENTIFICATION: Rhinophylla fischerae is easily distinguished from congeneric taxa by the following characteristics: pelage brown to reddish brown; free margin of uropatagium with a fringe of hair; forearm ≤ 34 mm; inner upper incisors relatively narrow, with two well-defined lobes; and a gap between the outer upper incisor and the canine (McLellan and Koop- man, 2008; López-Baucells et al., 2018). Descriptions and measurements were provided by Carter (1966), Marinkelle and Cadena (1972), Mumford (1975), and Swanepoel and Genoways (1979).

No subspecies are currently recognized (McLellan and Koopman, 2008), but Gomes et al. (2010) suggested that Rhinophylla fischerae might represent a species complex based on karyotypic differences between their specimens from Brazil (with 2 n = 38, FN = 68) and Baker and Bleir’s (1971) sample from Colombia (with 2 n = 34, FN = 56). Our comparisons of voucher material from the Yavarí-Ucayali interfluve with specimens from other localities across the range of the species— e.g., Brazil (AMNH 94555, 94557) and Peru (AMNH 230485, 230492)—revealed no clear morphological pattern to suggest that R. fischerae represents a species complex. Further studies including both mitochondrial and nuclear markers are necessary to resolve this issue.

Ascorra et al. (1993), Fleck et al. (2002), and Medina et al. (2015) correctly identified the material from Jenaro Herrera, Nuevo San Juan, Quebrada Betilia, Quebrada Lobo, and Quebrada Sábalo as Rhinophylla fischerae . The voucher material we examined from the Yavarí- Ucayali interfluve conforms to previous descriptions of the species, with measurements that fall within the previously documented range of size variation for R. fischerae .

REMARKS: All the recorded captures of Rhinophylla fischerae accompanied by ecological information from our region (N = 19) were made in ground-level mistnets; of these, 11 were in primary forest, 5 were in secondary vegetation, 1 was in a swampy mineral lick (collpa), 1 was in a palm swamp (aguajal), and 1 was on a river beach. No roosting groups of this species were encountered during our study.

Figures

FIG. 22. Photographs of A, an adult Rhinophylla fischerae and B, an adult R. pumilio, both captured at Jenaro Herrera. Photographs by Marco Tschapka.