Neoromicia matroka (Thomas & Schwann, 1905)

Goodman, Steven M., Rakotondramanana, Claude Fabienne, Ramasindrazana, Beza, Kearney, Teresa, Monadjem, Ara, Schoeman, M. Corrie, Taylor, Peter J., Naughton, Kate & Appleton, Belinda, 2015, An integrative approach to characterize Malagasy bats of the subfamily Vespertilioninae Gray, 1821, with the description of a new species of Hypsugo, Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society 173 (4), pp. 988-1018 : 1000-1002

NEOROMICIA MATROKA (THOMAS & SCHWANN, 1905)

Molecular genetics

Specimens assigned to N. matroka and collected across the geographical range of this species ( Goodman & Ramasindrazana, 2013), form a monophyletic lineage ( Fig. 2 ) and display little in the way of genetic variation. K2P distance within this lineage was 0.008 (N = 11, Table 1). This species forms the sister group to sub-Saharan N. capensis and these two clades are separated by 4.5% sequence divergence. Neoromicia matroka was formerly considered a subspecies of N. capensis (e.g. Koopman, 1994), but based on a variety of characters outlined herein, it warrants specific recognition and placement in the genus Neoromicia . In turn, two specimens from Botswana identified as N. cf. melckorum (TM 48485 and TM 48487) (see Monadjem et al., 2010 for a definition of N. cf. melckorum ), are sister to the matroka - capensis clade and separated by about 12% sequence divergence.

CHARACTERIZATION OF MALAGASY VESPER BATS 1001

Morphometrics

Measurements presented in Table 2.

Craniodental morphology

Neoromicia malagasyensis and N. matroka show little overlap in craniodental measurements and these two species are readily distinguished from N. robertsi (see Tables 3 and 4).

Bioacoustics

Measurements presented in Table 6.

Bacular morphology

As described by Bates et al. (2006), the baculum in N. matroka is moderate in length and averages 2.26 mm (2.12–2.49 mm, N = 6, see Table 8), the distal end is flattened and deflected ventrally, the dorsal surface has a vertical projection, and there is some intraspecific variation in the development of lateral flanges ( Fig. 7A, B ). The general shape of the baculum in N. matroka is similar to N. capensis ( Fig. 7E ; Kearney et al., 2002); the two taxa form sister species. The total length in N. capensis is slightly shorter, averaging 2.04 mm (1.59– 2.50 mm, N = 37) (T. Kearney, unpublished data).

Known geographical range

In Figure 1 , localities are presented of sequenced specimens of N. matroka . Additional specimens presented in Bates et al. (2006) and Goodman et al. (2012a) using other molecular results or bacula morphology include: Manambolo, Ambavafatra, 47°1′25″S, 22°8′58″E (FMNH 167660); Parc National de Mantadia, 18°49.94′S, 48°25.63′E (UADBA 43674); and Ambohipo, Antananarivo, 18°55.60′S, 47°33.80′E (UADBA 43675). On the basis of an unpublished study by Malalatiana Michèle Ratsimbazafy and Alexandre Hassanin of the Muséum National d’Histoire Naturelle de Paris, there is molecular evidence of this species in the Kianjavato area, 21.3818°S, 47.8928°E, 90 m asl ( Goodman et al., 2014) and females placed in OTU 3 of ‘ N. matroka ’ in Goodman et al. (2014, Fig. 7 ) are actually P. raceyi .

Figures

Figure 1. Map of localities mentioned in text associated with sequenced members of the genera Neoromicia, Pipistrellus, and Hypsugo captured on Madagascar. Other localities mentioned in the text and an elevational gradient are also shown.

Figure 2. Consensus Bayesian tree generated from partial sequences of cytochrome b (680 bp), applying the model GTR + I + G and implemented in MrBayes 3.2 (Huelsenbeck & Ronquist, 2001; Ronquist et al., 2012). The first number at each node indicates posterior probability and the second indicates bootstrap support as generated by RAxML (Stamatakis, 2006; Stamatakis et al., 2008; Stamatakis & Ott, 2008), employing the model GTR+G. An asterisk (*) indicates that support for that node is greater than 0.95 posterior probabilities in the Bayesian analysis and 95% bootstrap support in the ML analysis. The clade identity of every sequenced specimen is provided in Figure 3. The geographical origins of the different samples per species are indicated as A = Africa and M = Madagascar. Numbers in parentheses indicate the number of sequences included in the analysis for that clade as per the reduced dataset. See Monadjem et al. (2010) for the definition of Neoromicia cf. melckorum. The clade identity of every sequenced individual is provided in Figure 3.

Figure 7. Dorsal (above) and lateral (below) views of bacula from six species of Neoromicia. A, Neoromicia matroka (FMNH 222725, total length 2.12 mm) from Mantadia; B, Neoromicia matroka (FMNH 222728, total length 2.26 mm) from Anjozorobe; C, Neoromicia malagasyensis (FMNH 222724, total length 2.25 mm) from Isalo; D, Neoromicia robertsi (FMNH 222729, total length 3.12 mm), from Anjozorobe; E, Neoromicia capensis, dorsal view (TM 48490, ECJS-112/2009, total length 2.04 mm) and lateral view (TM 48485, ECJS-03/2009, lateral view, total length 2.01 mm) from Botswana; F: Neoromicia nana (TM 48573, UP-923, total length 1.32 mm), from South Africa; G, Neoromicia cf. melckorum (NMZL ECJS-114/ 2010, total length 2.55 mm) from Zambia.