Rhinolophus yunanensis Dobson, 1872

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

publication ID	https://doi.org/ 10.26515/rzsi/v120/i1/2020/140764
DOI	https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.10914232
persistent identifier	https://treatment.plazi.org/id/ED1A6535-4541-FFCA-FCAB-FE0F08A4FF29
treatment provided by	Felipe
scientific name	Rhinolophus yunanensis Dobson, 1872
status

Treatment

Rhinolophus yunanensis Dobson, 1872 View in CoL

An adult male specimen ( V /M/ERS/423) was collected by one of the authors ( GN) from Lamtuai Kai cave at Dailong village (25.00800 N, 93.52310 E, 1260m asl) in Tamenglong district GoogleMaps of Manipur on the 7th June GoogleMaps , 2018. Dailong village GoogleMaps is known for rich biodiversity and long tradition of conservation of forests (Birjit, et al. 2016) and has recently been declared as Biodiversity Heritage Site GoogleMaps in Manipur by the state government. The cave GoogleMaps is situated amidst tropical evergreen and semi-evergreen forest.

The live colouration of the individual was not noted. However, the dried fur appears to have a drab chestnut brown hue dorsally and a little paler venter. The upper surface of the interfemoral membrane is covered with hairs. The horseshoe had a breadth of 12mm and had one mental groove, a characteristic for the pearsonii group. R. yunanensis and R. pearsonii are very similar morphologically but cranial dimensions are larger in the former ( Csorba et al., 2003). Although our specimen has slightly smaller forearm length (54mm) than the average for R. yunanensis (56.6mm) ( Bates and Harrison, 1997), the cranial dimensions ( Table 1 View Table 1 ) are well beyond R. pearsonii and in conformity with that of R. yunanensis specimens from the Indian Subcontinent ( Bates & Harrison, 1997).

The baculum of the Manipur specimen is 2.94m in length while its width at the base is 1.03mm. It is similar to that of R. pearsonii in dorsal and ventral profile (vide Topal, 1975) and specialized. However, there are marked differences between the two when viewed laterally ( Plate 2 View Plate 2 ). The basal cone is large with a protruding basal knob however it is not as strongly projecting and as high as in pearsonii . The shaft is dorsoventrally flattened and blade like.

Wu et al. (2009) revisited specimens of R. yunanensis and R. pearsonii from Thailand and China. While maintaining the species identity of R. pearsonii and yunanensis , they described a new species R. thailandensis within this group from Thailand and maintained that R. yunanensis is distributed in the Sichuan and Yunan provinces of China. However, they did not include specimens from India and Myanmar from where this species is reported. Pending further investigations, following Csorba et al. (2003) we provisionally retain this species from northeastern India.