(Micronycteris garifuna; Credit for all images: Peter Larsen and Lizette Siles, Texas Tech University)
A new species of bat with a distinctive nose and impressive teeth has been documented. The bat, named Micronycteris garifuna, hails from St. Vincent island in the Caribbean and is described in the journal Mammalian Biology.
The bat's name honors the Garifuna people who live on the island. Their culture is a mix of Carib, Arawak and West African ancestry.
When Peter Larsen, a post-doctoral research associate in the Department of Biological Sciences at Texas Tech University, and colleague Lizette Siles first became aware of the bat, they thought it was already on the science record books. The bat was caught during an expedition to the island in 2005-2006.
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(St. Vincent expedition team from left to right: Peter Larsen, Scott Pedersen, Fitzroy Springer, and Brandon Bales)
“We didn’t know at the time when we caught these particular specimens that it was a new species,” Larsen said in a press release issued by the university. “We thought it was a species that had been described already in South America. A year or so went by, and I happened to look at this species that we had collected and compared it to what we thought it was -- a species from Trinidad. But the St. Vincent bat was huge comparatively speaking.”
He and Siles now think the bat evolved from ancestors that marooned on the Caribbean island during the Pleistocene, when a dramatic receding of glaciers and rising sea levels occurred.
(St. Vincent Island)
The bat's "size was the first clue (that this was a new species),” Siles said. “It’s a very large bat in body and skull size compared to its mainland counterparts. Also it differs in specific skull and teeth characteristics. The lower incisors are a lot larger than they are wide. That’s completely different than the one he (Larsen) thought it was. At the base of the skull where the ear is, there are supposed to be two wells. Those wells are very shallow. On the mainland species, they’re very deep.”
Island animals, in general, are unique. Due to isolation and other factors, some grow larger than their mainland relatives, while others evolve into smaller species. Researchers term the phenomenon behind this the "island rule."
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The new bat roosts in caves, trees and even logs on the forest floor. I believe the pointy appendage on its nose, based on similar ones found on other bats, may be used to facilitate echolocation.
It loves insects and has an uncommon way of catching them, along with other prey.
These bats "can actually pick their insect prey off the surface of rocks and leaves,” Siles said. “Not all insectivores can do that, because most insectivores catch their prey on the fly. Their big ears, wide wings and membranes between the rear feet and tail allow them to maneuver better.”
Tags: Animal Behavior, Animal Communication, Animals, Mammals, Photography
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