A second endemic land mammal for the Hawaiian Islands : a new genus and species of fossil bat (Chiroptera, Vespertilionidae)

Title Variants

Alternative: New fossil bat from Hawaiʻi

Alternative: New genus and species of fossil bat (Chiroptera, Vespertilionidae)

Related Titles

Series: American Museum novitates, no. 3854

By

Ziegler, Alan C. , author

Howarth, Francis G., 1940- , author
Simmons, Nancy B. , author

Type

Book

Material

Published material

Publication info

New York, NY American Museum of Natural History [2016]

Notes

Caption title.

"March 21, 2016."

Located over 3800 km from the nearest continent, the Hawaiian Islands have previously been thought to support only one endemic land mammal, the extant Hawaiian hoary bat (Lasiurus cinereus semotus), a taxon that apparently initially dispersed from mainland North America between 10,000 and 7000 years ago. Some uncertainty exists regarding the status of this taxon (i.e., whether or not populations representing more recent invasions of L. cinereus from North America are exchanging genes with the older lineage, and whether or not semotus represents a distinct species), but all researchers agree that hoary bats are the only endemic land mammals extant in the islands today. However, fossil evidence indicates that the Hawaiian Islands once supported another quite different endemic bat species that is now extinct. Skeletal remains of a new genus and species of vespertilionid bat are herein described from various Late Pleistocene and Holocene/Recent deposits on the five largest Hawaiian Islands. The new taxon is diagnosed by a mosaic of features including dental formula, molar morphology, skull shape, and metacarpal formula. This new taxon, which is smaller than Hawaiian hoary bat, was apparently present in the Hawaiian Islands by 320,000 years b.p. and survived until at least 1100 years ago and possibly much later. Accordingly, two species of bats coexisted on the Hawaiian Islands for several thousand years. As with numerous extinct endemic bird species, the extinction of the new bat taxon described here may have resulted either directly or indirectly from human colonization of the islands and the invasive nonnative species that came with human explorers and settlers.

Subjects

Bats , Bats, Fossil , Classification , Endemic animals , Extinct mammals , Hawaii , Holocene , Mammals , Mammals, Fossil , Paleontology , Pleistocene , Synemporion , Synemporion keana , Vespertilionidae

Call Number

QL1 .A436 no.3854 2016

Language

English

Identifiers

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1206/3854.1
OCLC: 945196503