Taxonomy and Natural History of the Southeast Asian Fruit-Bat GenusDyacopterus

Abstract

The pteropodid genus Dyacopterus Andersen, 1912, comprises several medium-sized fruit-bat species endemic to forested areas of Sundaland and the Philippines. Specimens of Dyacopterus are sparsely represented in collections of world museums, which has hindered resolution of species limits within the genus. Based on our studies of most available museum material, we review the infrageneric taxonomy of Dyacopterus using craniometric and other comparisons. In the past, 2 species have been described—D. spadiceus (Thomas, 1890), described from Borneo and later recorded from the Malay Peninsula, and D. brooksi Thomas, 1920, described from Sumatra. These 2 nominal taxa are often recognized as species or conspecific subspecies representing these respective populations. Our examinations instead suggest that both previously described species of Dyacopterus co-occur on the Sunda Shelf—the smaller-skulled D. spadiceus in peninsular Malaysia, Sumatra, and Borneo, and the larger-skulled D. brooksi in Sumatra and Borneo. We further identify specimens of Dyacopterus from the large islands of Luzon and Mindanao in the Philippines as representatives of a distinctive new species, Dyacopterus rickarti. This new species differs from the Sundaic taxa in its much larger size, unique palatal ridge formula, and in qualitative craniodental features. The natural history of each species, so far as it is known, is briefly reviewed.