Abstract
The South American bats of the genus Histiotus comprise between four and eight species, but their taxonomy has been controversial and the limits between species and their distribution are not well understood. In Colombia, Histiotus humboldti and H. montanus colombiae have been recorded, but undescribed species has been suggested. We evaluated the species richness and distribution of Colombian Histiotus using morphological, molecular, and acoustic traits. Our results evidence three species in Colombia, the two previously recorded taxa and a new species from the Cordillera Central of Colombia and northern Ecuador that we describe here. We also revalidated H. colombiae as a full species. H. humboldti is widely distributed in the Colombian and Ecuadorean Andes and can be sympatric with the other two species. H. colombiae is restricted to the Colombian Cordillera Oriental. Finally, we highlight the potential hidden diversity within Histiotus in the Peruvian and Bolivian Andes, the need to resolve the evolutionary relationships of the genus, and its implications to the understanding of the processes that have structured the Andean mammal fauna.
Highlights
Morphological analyses We studied 103 specimens belonging to eight proposed taxa of Histiotus according to Simmons (2005) and Moratelli et al (2019): H. montanus montanus, H. m. colombiae, H. m. inambarus, H. diaphanopterus, H. humboldti, H. laephotis, H. macrotus, and H. velatus
The eighteen standard measurements, including external, craniodental and mandibular, are based on Handley (1996), Moratelli et al (2013), and Feijó et al (2015). These measurements are described in appendix 2 of the supplementary material: total length (TL), tail length (TaL), hindfoot length (HFL), ear length (Ear), forearm length (FA), greatest length of skull (GLS), condylo-incisive length (CI), zygomatic breadth (ZB), postorbital breadth (PO), braincase breadth (BCB), mastoid breadth (MB), braincase height (BCH), length of the maxillary tooth row (MTR), palatal length (PAL), post-palatal length (PPAL), breadth across upper molars (M-M), breadth across the canines (C-C), mandibular tooth row (Dent-L)
Morphological traits Based on exclusive combinations of discrete characters, for Colombia, we identified three morphological groups of Histiotus including H. humboldti, H. m. colombiae from the Cordillera Oriental and H. m. colombiae from the Cordillera Central and northern Ecuador; the latter was considered as a new species described below
Summary
The Big-eared Brown Bats of the genus Histiotus are endemic to South America, occurring along the Andean chains in a variety of mountainous ecosystems, from Venezuela and Colombia to the most southern continental lands of Argentina and Chile, the coastal Atlantic Forest of eastern Brazil, and the semiarid regions of Argentina and Brazil (Handley and Gardner 2008, Feijó et al 2015, Moratelli et al 2019). Despite that, based on the unique morphology within the South American vespertilionid bats, Histiotus has been recognized as a valid genus in recent taxonomic treatments (Simmons 2005, Handley and Gardner 2008, Burgin et al 2018, Moratelli et al 2019). Simmons (2005) recognized seven species: H. alienus Thomas, 1916, H. humboldti Handley, 1996, H. laephotis Thomas, 1916, H. macrotus (Poeppig, 1835), H. magellanicus Philippi, 1866, H. velatus Moratelli et al (2019) recognized eight species adding H. diaphanopterus Feijó, Da Rocha and Althoff, 2015 to the seven species recognized by Simmons (2005)
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