AsianScientist (Sep. 5, 2011) – An international team of scientists have discovered three new bat species after completing a study covering Cambodia and Vietnam.
The aim of the study, published in the August issue of Journal of Mammalogy, was to survey the diversity of the nocturnal and secretive bats in southern Indochina.
Among the new species discovered is the aptly named Beelzebub’s tube-nosed bat, a diminutive but demonic-looking creature found only in Vietnam.
Dr. Gabor Csorba from the Hungarian Natural History Museum, the lead author of the paper, explained the origins of the name:
“Beelzebub commonly appears as a high ranking personality of the underworld in Christian texts, in both Old and New testaments, although one of the presumed original meanings of the name is ‘Lord of the Flies’.”
“We chose the name Beelzebub to reflect the dark ‘diabolic’ coloration of the new species and its fierce protective behavior in the field.”
Facing threats like deforestation, scientists are racing to document the poorly known bat fauna of Southeast Asia. Like Murina beelzebub, the other two newly-discovered species also belong to a distinctive group known as tube-nosed bats.
According to the scientists, these species are highly adapted to forest environments, which make them especially vulnerable to on-going deforestation in the region.
“Though bats already represent nearly a third of SE Asian mammals, recent genetic research suggests that the true number of species in the region may be twice that presently known,” said Professor Paul Racey, Bat Specialist Group representative of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).
“Discovering these new species, while exciting, really represents just the beginning,” added Dr. Neil Furey of Fauna and Flora International (FFI). “We know very little about the ecology of the group and the effects of forest degradation in particular, though some species are relatively common in secondary forest and roost in banana, a classic feature of such forests.”
The article can be found at: Csorba G et al. (2011) Revealing Cryptic Bat Diversity: Three New Murina And Redescription Of M. Tubinaris From Southeast Asia.
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Source: Fauna and Flora International.
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