Rhinolophus affinis Horsfield, 1823

Saikia, Uttam, Chakravarty, Rohit, Csorba, Gabor, Laskar, Mostaque Ahmed & Ruedi, Manuel, 2025, Taxonomic reassessment of bats from the Western Himalayas, India and description of a new species of the Myotis frater complex (Mammalia, Chiroptera, Vespertilionidae), Zootaxa 5644 (1), pp. 1-78 : 16

3. Rhinolophus affinis Horsfield, 1823

(Intermediate horseshoe bat)

New material: 1 M, 30.05.2017, Bank of river Narag, Devthal , Solan District , Himachal Pradesh, V /M/ERS/416 .

Morphological description of specimen: The average forearm length was 53.3 mm in three measured males. The specimens were rusty brown dorsally and buffy brown ventrally. Dorsal hairs were grayish white with brownish tips and ventral hairs were also whitish except for the light brown tips. The ear of specimen 416 was smaller at 19.6 mm. The superior connecting process of the sella was broadly rounded off when viewed laterally. The lancet was straight sided and pointed. The lower lips had three mental grooves. The 3 rd metacarpal (39.5 mm) was slightly shorter than 4 th (41.3 mm). The first phalanx of the 3 rd metacarpal (15.9 mm) was characteristically short, much less than half the length of the metacarpal. The 2 nd phalanx (30 mm) is 75% of the length of the metacarpal.

The baculum of the collected male was 2.16 mm in length and 0.77 mm in width at the base. The tip was pointed, and the basal cone was deeply emarginated on the ventral side and the emargination was little shallow on the dorsal side. In lateral profile, it was bent forward forming an elongated C–like structure.

DNA: We obtained 684 bp of the COI gene from the individual from Solan (M 2197/ V /M/ERS/ 416), which was identical to that of Rh. affinis from Uttarakhand (GB MN339197 ) or very close to one individual from Meghalaya (M1927, released). Its CYTB (1140 bp) sequence was similar to various individuals from Meghalaya (e.g., M1604) or China (e.g., GB EF544419 ) at about 3.5% divergence. In NJ reconstructions, Rh. affinis from throughout continental Asia always formed a strongly supported, monophyletic clade distinct from other species of rhinolophids ( Figs 3 and 5).

Locality records and ecological notes: Himachal Pradesh: Barog tunnel (1560 m), Happy valley near Solan town (1550 m), Kot Beja (1100 m) and Devthal (963 m) in Solan district ( Saikia et al. 2011; present study). Uttarakhand: Kaladhungi (400 m) and Bilaspur (1380 m) near Bhim Tal in Naini Tal district; Maldevta (850 m), Landour (2000 m), and Benog WLS (1755 m) in Dehradun district, Devalsari (1700 m) and Dhanaulti (2100 m) in Tehri–Garhwal district, ( Bhat 1974; Bates & Harriosn 1997; Chakravarty et al. 2020).

Three males were caught (two were released upon measuring) from inside an ancient gold mine of about 13 m length and about 1 m in diameter on the bank of a river. They were roosting in three groups of 3–20 individuals sharing space with some Hi. armiger . They had FM–CF–FM structure, and the peak frequency (FmaxE) recorded from our Himachal individuals ranged between 79 and 81 kHz. This was lower than those previously recorded in Uttarakhand i.e., 88 kHz ( Chakravarty et al. 2020) suggesting geographical variations which is common in rhinolophid bats ( Sun et al. 2013).

Figures

FIGURE 3: Neighbor-joining tree reconstruction of examined rhinolophids and hipposiderids COI sequences and based on the K2P matrix in Table S2. Branches are proportional to the number of mutational steps. Sequence names are composed of the first two letters of the genus, followed by the species name, the GenBank number (or field number for newly sequenced samples), and the region of origin. Samples from India are highlighted in bold face.