Rhinolophus sinicus Anderson, 1905

Saikia, Uttam, Ngaomei, Gaikhuanlung & Meetei, A. B., 2020, Some noteworthy bat (Mammalia: Chiroptera) records from Manipur State, Northeastern India, Records of the Zoological Survey of India 120 (1), pp. 41-48 : 42

Rhinolophus sinicus Anderson, 1905

An adult female ( V /M/ERS/453) was collected from a cave in Phalang I village (24.97110 N, 93.56380 E 1000m asl) in Tamenglong district of Manipur on 7th June, 2017. The topography around the cave is hilly dominated by deciduous forest and extensive bamboo growth (Figure 1) .

Our preserved specimen had a fulvous brown back and lighter belly. The lancet had a well defined tip. In side view, the superior connecting process of the sella is bluntly rounded off and the base of the sella characteristically projects slightly forward and downwards while the base does not project downward in in allied congener R. rouxii ( Thomas, 2000) . The mental grooves are three in numbers. The third metacarpal is shortest and the fourth and the fifth are sub equal. Since the skull was partially damaged, completed set of craniodental measurements could not be acquired. However, based on the obtainable mensural data ( Table 1 ) which corresponds well with published data and characteristics shape of the lancet ( Thomas, 2000; Csorba et al., 2003), our specimen was assigned to R. sinicus . This species was earlier recognized as a subspecies of R. rouxii i.e. R. r. sinicus . However, based on differences in a number of external, internal and molecular characters, it was elevated to full species rank ( Thomas, 2000). Two subspecies are currently recognized of which R. s. sinicus has been reported from Himalayas and South East Asia ( Csorba et al., 2003).