Title
Bite force, cranial morphometrics and size in the fishing bat Myotis vivesi (Chiroptera: Vespertilionidae)
Date Issued
01 January 2018
Access level
open access
Resource Type
research article
Author(s)
Ospina-Garcés S.M.
De Luna E.
Herrera M.L.G.
Arroyo-Cabrales J.
Flores-Martínez J.J.
Abstract
Fish-eating in bats evolved independently in Myotis vivesi (Vespertillionidae) and Noctilio leporinus (Noctilionidae). We compared cranial morphological characters and bite force between these species to test the existence of evolutionary parallelism in piscivory. We collected cranial distances of M. vivesi, two related insectivorous bats (M. velifer and M. keaysi), two facultatively piscivorous bats (M. daubentonii and M. capaccinii), and N. leporinus. We analyzed morphometric data applying multivariate methods to test for differences among the six species. We also measured bite force in M. vivesi and evaluated if this value was well predicted by its cranial size. Both piscivorous species were morphologically different from the facultatively piscivorous and insectivorous species, and skull size had a significant contribution to this difference. However, we did not find morphological and functional similarities that could be interpreted as parallelisms between M. vivesi and N. leporinus. These two piscivorous species differed significantly in cranial measurements and in bite force. Bite force measured for M. vivesi was well predicted by skull size. Piscivory in M. vivesi might be associated to the existence of a vertically displaced temporal muscle and an increase in gape angle that allows a moderate bite force to process food.
Start page
1614
End page
1628
Volume
66
Issue
4
Language
English
OCDE Knowledge area
Zoología, Ornitología, Entomología, ciencias biológicas del comportamiento
Subjects
Scopus EID
2-s2.0-85070257537
Source
Revista de Biologia Tropical
ISSN of the container
00347744
Sponsor(s)
This study was funded by a research grant from Dirección General de Asuntos del Personal Académico (DGAPA, UNAM), and sabbatical grants (CONACyT #146770, DGAPA #1404) to LGHM (#IN201108). A graduate student fellowship by the Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnología (CONACyT, México) supported SMOG. Transportation to Partida Norte island was generously provided by Sec-retaría de Marina-Armada de México. The Prescott College Kino Bay Center provided invaluable logistic support during fieldwork. Samples were collected with permission from the Secretaría de Medio Ambiente y Recursos Naturales and CONANP (México).
Sources of information:
Directorio de Producción Científica
Scopus