Revision of the family Rhinopomatidae (Chiroptera): a taxonomic synthesis of the morphological and molecular genetic evidence

Abstract

Bats of the monotypic family Rhinopomatidae occur in a belt of arid regions from Senegal to Bengal, and within this range, one to six species were recognised historically. The recent genetic analysis revealed within the single genus Rhinopoma five lineages and seven sublineages defined by the analysis of nuclear markers and six lineages and ten sublineages by the analysis of mitochondrial markers. Our aim was an analysis of morphologic variation of the genus and the synthesis of its results with a molecular genetic evidence. Our morphometric comparison revealed seven basic morphotypes; five of them corresponded with the genetic partitioning of the genus, being associated with five species, plus two additional morphotypes were separated. The revised taxonomic arrangement of Rhinopomatidae here suggested contains six species, comparing the last review, the existence of one species is rejected and one species is newly described. Most of the species represent well defined morphotypes that correspond to the nuclear DNA, just one morphotype remains defined only morphologically. Three species are considered monotypic and three polytypic with two to three subspecies recognised. The subspecies of two species are defined both morphologically and genetically, while in Rhinopoma cystops morphological evidence did not reveal marked geographical variation.