Hsunycteris, Parlos, Timm, Swier, Zeballos and Baker, 2014

Pilatti, Patricia, Benathar, Thayse, da Rocha, Patrício A., Koroiva, Ricardo, Carmignotto, Ana P., Gonçalves, Camila F., Beltrão, Mayara Guimarães, Moratelli, Ricardo & Astúa, Diego, 2024, Hsunycteris (Chiroptera, Phyllostomidae, Lonchophyllinae) hidden diversity in Brazil: new records encompassing new biomes reveal the presence of an unnamed species in the Brazilian Atlantic Forest, Acta Chiropterologica 26 (2), pp. 153-170 : 162-164

New Records with Distribution Extension for Hsunycteris

Locality 1. Brazil, Pernambuco, municipality of Ipojuca, Usina Salgado , Mata do Mingú (08°31’29”S; 35°03’26”W — Table 1 and Fig. 1 ). We found a specimen housed at UFPB formerly assigned to Lionycteris spurelli , collected by Thais Lira on December 14, 2005, at Mata do Mingú, an Atlantic Forest fragment with 13.4 ha surrounded by swamps and sugarcane crops in a private area of Usina Salgado sugarcane mills. The specimen is a fluid-preserved adult female with skull removed ( UFPB 5764 , field n° TL 33 — Fig. 3 ), and was reported in the literature as the first record of L. spurelli for northeastern Brazil, Pernambuco state ( Lira et al., 2009) .

Locality 2. Brazil, Pernambuco, municipality of Ribeirão, Usina Cucaú , Engenho Vicente Campelo (08°29’29.7”S; 35°17’15.1”W ― Table 1 , Figs. 1 and 2 ). We found two specimens housed at UFPB formerly assigned to Lonchophylla mordax , collected by Anderson S. Feijó on April 8, 2013 in an Atlantic Forest area in a private area of Usina Cucaú sugarcane mills. These comprise two fluid-preserved specimens with skulls removed, including an adult male ( UFPB 7029 ; field n° AF 592) and a subadult female ( UFPB 7038 ; field n° AF 593) .

Locality 3. Brazil, Alagoas, municipality of Murici, Estação Ecológica de Murici (9°13’24.4”S; 35°52’45.6”W — Table 1 and Fig. 1 ). A voucher specimen was collected on December 19, 2021 during a survey in a protected area of Atlantic Forest by APC, CFG, and MGB. The specimen is a fluid-preserved adult female with skull removed and tissue sample collected ( UFPB 12488 ; field n° MU 29 — Fig. 3 ), which was included in molecular analyses .

Locality 4. Brazil, Minas Gerais, municipality of Conceição do Mato Dentro (19°02’8.678”S; 43°25’29.615”W — Table 1 and Fig. 1 ). We found one specimen housed at UFLA formerly assigned to L. mordax , collected by Renato Gregorin in a transition zone between Cerrado and Atlantic Forest ( IBGE, 2019). The specimen is a fluid-preserved adult female with skull removed ( UFLA 2135 — Fig. 3 ) .

Locality 9. Brazil, Maranhão, municipality of Carolina, Parque Nacional Chapada das Mesas (06°56’28.9”S; 47°22’56.6”W — Table 1 and Fig. 1 ). We found one specimen housed at CCUNB formerly assigned to Lonchophylla dekeyseri , collected on October 17, 2015, in a federally protected area within Cerrado. The specimen is a fluid-preserved adult male with a skull retained ( CCUNB 1288 ) .

New Records for Hsunycteris within the Expected Distribution

Locality 10. Brazil, Maranhão, municipality of Carutapera (01°11’42.0”S, 46°01’12.0”W — Table 1 and Fig. 1 ). We received two specimens assigned to H. thomasi for housing at Coleção de Mamíferos UFPB, collected by Cleison L. S. Costa and Samira B. Mendes in June 2016 in the northwesternmost locality of the Maranhão state near the border with Pará, within the Amazonian Forest. These specimens are fluid-preserved adult males with skull removed and tissue samples (UFPB 12590, field n° RRM 13; UFPB 12591, field n° RRM 47). We also included the specimen UFPB 12590 (RRM 13) in the molecular analyses. This locality was previously reported by Barros et al. (2021) in a textbook. They assigned this record to H. thomasi according to comparisons of genetic similarities with sequences deposited in the Bold Systems database but without mention of voucher specimens or sequences used in the comparisons .

Locality 5. Brazil, Mato Grosso, municipality of Alta Floresta (9°37’56.8”S, 55°55’38.8”W — Table 1 and Fig. 1 ), near the border with Pará state, within the Amazonian Forest. The specimen ( MZUSP 28279 ) is a fluid-preserved adult male with skull removed, collected by S. B. P. Silva on December 9, 1991 near Rio Cristalino .

Locality 6. Brazil, Mato Grosso, municipality of São José dos Quatro Marcos (15°37’39.0”S, 58°10’43.0”W — Table 1 and Fig. 1 ). The related specimen ( DZSJRP 15369 ) is a fluid-preserved adult male with skull retained collected by E. M. Coloni on 9 January 1986 at Fazenda São Pedro . This locality is located in the southern portion of Mato Grosso state, in a region traditionally considered within the Cerrado biome but currently treated as part of Chiquitano dry forests ( Olson et al., 2001; Dinerstein et al., 2017). It is also located nearly 360 km southwest of Serra Azul , which is the first record for the Cerrado biome ( Louzada et al., 2015) .

Phylogenetic Analyses

Phylogenetic analysis based on the Cytb gene ( Fig. 4 ) shows that Hsunycteris bats form a monophyletic group, with six recovered clades: H. dashe as a sister of a clade that includes H. cadenai , H. pattoni , and the three lineages of H. thomasi . The H. thomasi lineages were recovered as paraphyletic, with lineage I being the first to diverge within this clade, lineage II as sister of H. pattoni , and lineage III as a sister of H. cadenai .

The Cytb marker showed a mean divergence of 7.4% between lineages I and II, 8.1% between lineages I and III, and 8.6% between lineages II and III, while the variation within lineages ranged from 1.0% to 2.1% ( Table 3 ). The specimen UFPB 12488 (locality 3: ESEC Murici, AL, Brazil) was recovered within lineage III, the new lineage here recovered for H. thomasi based on the Cytb tree ( Fig. 4 ). Regarding the specimen UFPB 12590 (locality 10: Carutapera, MA, Brazil), it was also recovered within the same lineage III, based on the data obtained for the COI marker (Supplementary Table S2 and Supplementary Fig. S1 ).

Figures

FIG. 1. Distribution of Hsunycteris in Brazil, including previously reported localities from the literature (black dots), and its currently known distribution based on Marsh et al. (2022). White stars indicate the extension of the geographic distribution for the genus, with new records for the northeastern Atlantic Forest and southeastern transition zone between Cerrado and Atlantic Forest, reported in the present study. White dots indicate new records within the currently known distribution. The red arrow indicates the locality of the new lineage (Loc. 3). See Table 1 for locality code numbers

FIG. 3. Skulls of Hsunycteris from transition zone with the Cerrado (a) and Atlantic Forest (b, and c) in lateral, ventral, and dorsal views and mandibles in lateral view. Scale bar 10 mm. Photographs by PP

FIG. 2. Individual of H. cf. thomasi lineage III captured in Usina Cucaú, Engenho Vicente Campelo, municipality of Ribeirão, Pernambuco state, Brazil, vouchered as UFPB 7029/7038 at the Coleção de Mamíferos da Universidade Federal da Paraíba. Photograph by Anderson Feijó

FIG. 4. Phylogenetic relationships inferred by Maximum Likelihood analysis of the gene Cytb. Numbers in the branches represent further probabilities. The colors represent the different lineages recovered; lineage I is green, lineage II is blue, and lineage III is salmon. The red rectangle shows the Atlantic Forest specimen