Character variation and taxonomy of short-tailed fruit bats from Carollia in Brazil

Túlio Henrique Lemos,Ligiane Martins Moras,Valéria Da Cunha Tavares

doi:10.3897/zoologia.37.e34587

Abstract

Carolliahas a complex taxonomic history and is widely distributed in the Neotropics. Species ofCarolliaappear to have differentiated recently in the late Cenozoic, and present overlapping morphological characters that may not be useful to distinguish among species.Carolliahas recently been revised, but only a few specimens representing the Brazilian distribution ofCarolliawithin Brazil were studied. We reviewed specimens ofCarolliadistributed in several localities of Brazil revisiting previously described morphological characters for species identification, and taxonomic problems within the genus. We found a large degree of overlap between characters previously used to distinguish among species ofCarollia, and some of them constitute variation within a same species. We also report new records extending the known distribution ofC. benkeithito farther east of its previously known distribution (Parauapebas, southeastern Pará, and Vitória do Xingu, Pará, eastern Amazonian Brazil) and one record extending the distribution ofC. brevicaudasouth to Corumbá, Mato Grosso do Sul, Brazil.

Highlights

The short-tailed bats from Carollia Gray, 1838 are gleaning frugivores that forage in highly cluttered spaces, and may complement their diet with insects (Kalko et al 1996, McLellan and Koopman 2008)
We identified as C. perspicillata individuals with forearms ranging from 37.5 mm to 44.5 mm, short dorsal fur and banding patterns of individual hair less evident, with a dark proximal band occupying less than 1⁄4 of the total length of each hair (Tables 1, 2)
Some external characters previously discussed for the variation of C. benkeithi, C. brevicauda and C. perspicillata (Pine 1972, Lim and Engstrom 2001, Solari and Baker 2006, McLellan and Koopman 2008) were helpful for separating among these species within our sampling, including the dorsal hair banding, the length of dorsal fur between shoulders, the presence of fur in the forearm, and the forearm length

Summary

Introduction

The short-tailed bats from Carollia Gray, 1838 are gleaning frugivores that forage in highly cluttered spaces, and may complement their diet with insects (Kalko et al 1996, McLellan and Koopman 2008). They are frequently captured in mist-nets at ground level, and often are the most abundant genus regionally in Central and South America (Bonaccorso 1979, Fleming 1988, Bernard and Fenton 2002). Four new species have been described: Carollia sowelli Baker, Solari & Hoffmann, 2002; Carollia manu Pacheco, Solari & Velazco, 2004; Carollia monohernandezi

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