https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0966-0139
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Abstract
Patterns of rarity, endemism, and vulnerability are known for four species of yellow-eared bats of the genus Vampyressa: V. melissa, V. voragine, V. elisabethae, and V. sinchi, the last two described based on skull and external morphology. We extracted DNA from the holotypes of V. elisabethae and V. sinchi using strict ancient DNA protocols and sequenced the complete cytochrome-b gene of the mtDNA to investigate the phylogenetic relationships within the genus and employed species-delimitation tests to evaluate the validity of all the currently named species of Vampyressa. The resulting tree topology and our species-delimitation analyses corroborate the validity of V. elisabethae and V. voragine, but places V. sinchi in V. melissa. Based on these results and phenotypic variation, we recognize five valid species in Vampyressa and treat sinchi as a subspecies of a polytypic V. melissa; for which we provide a rediagnosis. Our results show that V. elisabethae is as highly divergent genetically as it is morphologically, and suggest that V. thyone, one of the two species of Vampyressa known to have wide distributions, is a species complex requiring further investigation.
Acknowledgements
We are grateful to Bruce Patterson, Field Museum of Natural History, Chicago, IL for permission to sample the holotype of V. sinchi and the Biological Survey Unit, Division of Mammals, National Museum of Natural History, Washington, DC, for permission to sample the holotype of V. elisabethae. We thank Daniel Casali for suggestions on species delimitation methods. VCT had a PNPD CAPES postdoctoral fellowship for part of the period of this research, and GSTG received a pre-doctoral fellowship from the Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior, Brazil (CAPES; Code 001).
Disclosure statement
Authors avow no potential conflict of interest.
Supplemental material
Supplemental material for this article can be accessed here: https://doi.org/10.1080/14772000.2022.2117247
Associate Editor: Dr Susan Tsang
