Abstract
The Ghost bat Macroderma gigas is a monotypic bat species that is endemic to northern Australia and named on the basis of the large size of its partially conjoined ears. It is the only carnivorous bat found in Australia and its conservation status is currently listed as Vulnerable. Here, we describe the complete mitochondrial genome of M. gigas and compare it to other vertebrates. The M. gigas circularized mitogenome was 16,661 bp and contained 13 protein-coding genes, two rRNA genes, 22 tRNAs and a control region (D-loop) of 1228 bp. Phylogenetic analysis of available entire mitogenomes reveals that Macroderma gigas is most closely related to the Indian false vampire bat Megaderma lyra in the family Megadermatidae (false vampire bats).
Highlights
The Ghost bat Macroderma gigas is the only flying carnivorous bat that is endemic to Australia
It is estimated that only several thousand ghost bats remain in existence today (Hudson and Wilson 1986), concentrated in three population centers; in Western Australia in the Northern Pilbara and Kimberley regions, and in Queensland (Hoyle et al 2001)
Females across maternal populations have expressed alleles that are distinguishable which implies that separation of populations has occurred through evolutionary time (Wilmer et al 1999). Both nuclear (Ottewell et al 2020) and mtDNA genomes can make a substantial contribution to phylogenetics and, to our knowledge, the mitochondrial genome has not been established for any species of Macroderma
Summary
The Ghost bat Macroderma gigas is the only flying carnivorous bat that is endemic to Australia. It has partially conjoined ears and is the largest bat in the family Megadermatidae (false vampires; Hudson and Wilson 1986). It is estimated that only several thousand ghost bats remain in existence today (Hudson and Wilson 1986) , concentrated in three population centers; in Western Australia in the Northern Pilbara and Kimberley regions, and in Queensland (Hoyle et al 2001).
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