Platyrrhinus umbratus ( Lyon, 1902 )

Velazco, Paul M., Ly, Grace, McAllister, Julia & Esquivel, Diego A., 2023, Geographic variation in select species of the bat genus Platyrrhinus, Therya 14 (1), pp. 121-130 : 128

Platyrrhinus umbratus ( Lyon, 1902)

Synonyms

Vampyrops umbratus Lyon, 1902:151 .

type locality:" San Miguel ,̎ La Guajira, Colombia .

Vampyrops oratus Thomas, 1914:411 .

type locality: "Galifari, Sierra del Avila, [Distrito Federal] N. Venezuela. Alt. 6500’ ̎ [emend to " Galipán (10° 33’ N, - 66° 54’ W, 1,980 m), Cerro Ávila, 5.7 km NE Caracas, Vargas, Venezuela ̎].

Vampyrops nigellus Gardner and Carter, 1972:1 .

type locality: "Huanhuachayo (12° 44’ S, - 73° 47’ W), about 1,660 m, Departamento de Ayacucho, Peru .̎

Distribution. Platyrrhinus umbratus occurs at elevations from 400 m to above 3,150 m in the Andean and Caribbean Mountain systems of Venezuela and Colombia, and along the Andes in Ecuador, Peru, and Bolivia.

Diagnosis. Southern and some northern populations ( nigellus ) of the species are medium-size bats (FA 40.6– 48.0 mm, CIL 21.9–25.2 mm; Velazco and Gardner [2009]: table 4) characterized by a tricolored ventral fur; densely haired fringe on the edge of the uropatagium; postorbital process absent or poorly developed; M1 protocone moderately developed; stylar cusp on the lingual face of the M2 metacone absent; m2 hypoconid absent; and stylid cusp between the metaconid and protoconid of the m2 present. In contrast, northern populations ( umbratus ) of the species are medium-size bats (FA 42.0–47.8 mm, CIL 23.4–25.1 mm; Velazco and Gardner [2009]: table 4) characterized by a bicolored ventral fur; margin of the uropatagium usually hairy, sometimes sparsely haired; postorbital process moderately developed; M1 protocone well developed; stylar cusp on the lingual face of the M2 metacone present; m2 hypoconid present; and stylid cusp between the metaconid and protoconid of the m2 absent.

Remarks. Analyses of linear measurements of nigellus populations did not reveal secondary sexual variation among populations ( Velazco and Solari 2003). Linear morphometric analyses recovered a high overlap between specimens of nigellus and umbratus , indicating similarities in size and shape ( Velazco et al. 2018). Molecular analyses recovered specimens of nigellus and umbratus clustering together, forming non monophyletic groups ( Velazco et al. 2018). Ecological niche modeling analyses found that the potential distributions of umbratus and nigellus in the geographic space were highly similar, suggesting that both groups exhibit broadly overlapping climatic niches with no ecological differentiation ( Velazco et al. 2018).