Hipposideros ater Templeton 1848

FAISAL ALI ANWARALI KHAN, VICKI J. SWIER, SERGIO SOLARI, PETER A. LARSEN, BESAR KETOL, WAHAP MARNI, SIVANATHAN ELLAGUPILLAY, MAKLARIN LAKIM, MOHAMMAD TAJUDDIN ABDULLAH & ROBERT J. BAKER, 2008, USING GENETICS AND MORPHOLOGY TO EXAMINE SPECIES DIVERSITY OF OLD WORLD BATS: REPORT OF A RECENT COLLECTION FROM MALAYSIA, Occasional Papers of the Museum 281, pp. 1-30 : 12

Hipposideros ater Templeton 1848

Dusky Leaf-nosed Bat (Local name not available)

Specimens examined (2).— Mt. Penrisen: TTU 108379 (GenBank EU521615 ), TTU 108391.

Type locality.— Sri Lanka, Western Province of Colombo.

Malaysian distribution.—Recorded from Peninsular Malaysia (no specific localities) and Borneo (Sabah: Gomantong, Kinabalu, Madai, Segarong, and Sukau; Sarawak: Bako NP, Bau, Jambusan Cave, Kubah NP, Mt. Murud, and Niah NP). Our record is new for Mt. Penrisen.

Remarks.— Bicolor species group (Corbet and Hill 1992). This bat was caught in harp traps set across walking trails beside a stream. Hipposideros ater has a pale pinkish noseleaf with no lateral leaflets. Important characters used for identification are forearm size and the internarial septum which is slightly swollen at the base and very narrow in the middle (Hill 1963; Hill and Francis 1984). There is morphological overlap (forearm, ear, and tail length) between H. ater , H. bicolor , H. cineraceus , and H. dyacorum . A specimen, TTU 108391 (19 August 2006), from Mt. Penrisen had a facial gland behind the posterior noseleaf (similar to the gland in H. galeritus ). Low cyt- b genetic distance was observed between Borneo samples (<1%). However, a GenBank sequence of H. ater ( DQ054807 ) from Australia has a genetic distance value>5% with respect to our Borneo specimen. The significance of this genetic distance value is limited as this is the only available cyt- b gene sequence of H. ater for comparison. In light of current findings, it is probable that H. ater in Borneo might represent a different taxon as proposed by Suyanto and Struebig (2007).