Whiskered Myotis
Encyclopedia
Wall-roosting Mouse-eared Bat, or Nepalese Whiskered Myotis (Myotis muricola) is a species of vesper bat
in the Vespertilionidae family. The type locality of M.muricola is Nepal
.
studies indicate that bat
s currently referred to M.muricola represent a complex of species
.
s is the acquisition of powered flight (Cooper & Tabin, 2008). They have hand wings ( Chiroptera )which is a highly modified tetrapod limb structure (Cooper & Tabin, 2008) that consists of a membrane of skin stretched between dramatically elongated third, fourth, and fifth forelimb digits. (Sears, Behringer, Rasweiler, & Niswander, 2006). The first bat fossil discovered approximately 50 million years ago and it show no differ than modern bats (Richardson, 1993). However, there is at least a 14-million-year gap in the existing fossil record (Cooper & Tabin, 2008). Thus, no intermediate stages in the bats’ family tree have been identified (Richardson, 1993). A studies led by Sears, Behringer, Rasweiler, & Niswander (2006), suggests that the evolution
of bat wings was due not to changes in the bone genes
themselves but to a change in the gene that regulates the expression of these bone genes
. The development of the bat embryo are compared to the development of the mouse embryo to find gene
might have been involved. A gene
that coded a certain protein
(called Bmp2) responsible for bone growth and found that the expression of this gene
was indeed 30% higher in the developing forelimbs of bat
s than it was in mice
. This indicated that probably happened around 50 million years ago, has caused an abnormal growth of the forelimbs digits in bat
s and use their overdeveloped fingers as wings, and eventually became some of the most successful mammals on Earth
.
, Bangladesh
, Bhutan
, Cambodia
, India
, Indonesia
, Laos
, Malaysia, Myanmar
, Nepal
, Pakistan
, Papua New Guinea
, the Philippines
, Thailand
, and Vietnam
(Simmons,2005.).
in flight, perched on foliage or the ground, or from a water
surface. The small insects usually caught directly in the mouth. Larger ones be scooped out of the air by tail membrane and flip it to the mouth, or slapped the prey to the mouth with wing tips (Bonaccooso, 1998) . They do drink by obtaining moisture from the juicy insides of insects, swooping low over the surface of water
and droplets of water from the roof of tunnel or caves whilst roosting (Richardson, 1993).
They do emit high pitched sound that humans cannot hear called echolocation
. This ability enables M.muricola to find their way around in the dark and foraging. Bat
s are social animals and like to colonize together, sometime roosting singly (Richardson, 1993).
Vesper bat
Vesper bats , also known as Evening bats or Common bats, are the largest and best-known family of bats. They belong to the suborder Microchiroptera . There are over three hundred species distributed all over the world, on every continent except Antarctica...
in the Vespertilionidae family. The type locality of M.muricola is Nepal
Nepal
Nepal , officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal, is a landlocked sovereign state located in South Asia. It is located in the Himalayas and bordered to the north by the People's Republic of China, and to the south, east, and west by the Republic of India...
.
Taxonomic notes
Previously,M.muricola known as a subspecies of Myotis mystacinus but the geneticGenetics
Genetics , a discipline of biology, is the science of genes, heredity, and variation in living organisms....
studies indicate that bat
Bat
Bats are mammals of the order Chiroptera "hand" and pteron "wing") whose forelimbs form webbed wings, making them the only mammals naturally capable of true and sustained flight. By contrast, other mammals said to fly, such as flying squirrels, gliding possums, and colugos, glide rather than fly,...
s currently referred to M.muricola represent a complex of species
Species
In biology, a species is one of the basic units of biological classification and a taxonomic rank. A species is often defined as a group of organisms capable of interbreeding and producing fertile offspring. While in many cases this definition is adequate, more precise or differing measures are...
.
Evolution
The greatest evolutionary success of batBat
Bats are mammals of the order Chiroptera "hand" and pteron "wing") whose forelimbs form webbed wings, making them the only mammals naturally capable of true and sustained flight. By contrast, other mammals said to fly, such as flying squirrels, gliding possums, and colugos, glide rather than fly,...
s is the acquisition of powered flight (Cooper & Tabin, 2008). They have hand wings ( Chiroptera )which is a highly modified tetrapod limb structure (Cooper & Tabin, 2008) that consists of a membrane of skin stretched between dramatically elongated third, fourth, and fifth forelimb digits. (Sears, Behringer, Rasweiler, & Niswander, 2006). The first bat fossil discovered approximately 50 million years ago and it show no differ than modern bats (Richardson, 1993). However, there is at least a 14-million-year gap in the existing fossil record (Cooper & Tabin, 2008). Thus, no intermediate stages in the bats’ family tree have been identified (Richardson, 1993). A studies led by Sears, Behringer, Rasweiler, & Niswander (2006), suggests that the evolution
Evolution
Evolution is any change across successive generations in the heritable characteristics of biological populations. Evolutionary processes give rise to diversity at every level of biological organisation, including species, individual organisms and molecules such as DNA and proteins.Life on Earth...
of bat wings was due not to changes in the bone genes
Gênes
Gênes is the name of a département of the First French Empire in present Italy, named after the city of Genoa. It was formed in 1805, when Napoleon Bonaparte occupied the Republic of Genoa. Its capital was Genoa, and it was divided in the arrondissements of Genoa, Bobbio, Novi Ligure, Tortona and...
themselves but to a change in the gene that regulates the expression of these bone genes
Gênes
Gênes is the name of a département of the First French Empire in present Italy, named after the city of Genoa. It was formed in 1805, when Napoleon Bonaparte occupied the Republic of Genoa. Its capital was Genoa, and it was divided in the arrondissements of Genoa, Bobbio, Novi Ligure, Tortona and...
. The development of the bat embryo are compared to the development of the mouse embryo to find gene
Gene
A gene is a molecular unit of heredity of a living organism. It is a name given to some stretches of DNA and RNA that code for a type of protein or for an RNA chain that has a function in the organism. Living beings depend on genes, as they specify all proteins and functional RNA chains...
might have been involved. A gene
Gene
A gene is a molecular unit of heredity of a living organism. It is a name given to some stretches of DNA and RNA that code for a type of protein or for an RNA chain that has a function in the organism. Living beings depend on genes, as they specify all proteins and functional RNA chains...
that coded a certain protein
Protein
Proteins are biochemical compounds consisting of one or more polypeptides typically folded into a globular or fibrous form, facilitating a biological function. A polypeptide is a single linear polymer chain of amino acids bonded together by peptide bonds between the carboxyl and amino groups of...
(called Bmp2) responsible for bone growth and found that the expression of this gene
Gene
A gene is a molecular unit of heredity of a living organism. It is a name given to some stretches of DNA and RNA that code for a type of protein or for an RNA chain that has a function in the organism. Living beings depend on genes, as they specify all proteins and functional RNA chains...
was indeed 30% higher in the developing forelimbs of bat
Bat
Bats are mammals of the order Chiroptera "hand" and pteron "wing") whose forelimbs form webbed wings, making them the only mammals naturally capable of true and sustained flight. By contrast, other mammals said to fly, such as flying squirrels, gliding possums, and colugos, glide rather than fly,...
s than it was in mice
MICE
-Fiction:*Mice , alien species in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy*The Mice -Acronyms:* "Meetings, Incentives, Conferencing, Exhibitions", facilities terminology for events...
. This indicated that probably happened around 50 million years ago, has caused an abnormal growth of the forelimbs digits in bat
Bat
Bats are mammals of the order Chiroptera "hand" and pteron "wing") whose forelimbs form webbed wings, making them the only mammals naturally capable of true and sustained flight. By contrast, other mammals said to fly, such as flying squirrels, gliding possums, and colugos, glide rather than fly,...
s and use their overdeveloped fingers as wings, and eventually became some of the most successful mammals on Earth
Earth
Earth is the third planet from the Sun, and the densest and fifth-largest of the eight planets in the Solar System. It is also the largest of the Solar System's four terrestrial planets...
.
Morphology
The color of upper parts of M.muricola are brown to gray with dark bases and the under parts with dark bases ,light brown tips. The ears are moderately long, well-developed slender tragus, bent forwards and bluntly pointed (Francis C. M., 2008) . M.muricola have small feet with wing membrane attached at base of toes. The tail is long, completely enclosed in the interfemoral membrane. Its have 3 pairs of premolars which upper canine much longer than third premolar. Second premolar is small and slightly intruded from the tooth row. (Yasuma, Andau, Apin, Tuh Yit Yu, & Kimsui, 2003).Distributions
M.muricola is found in AfghanistanAfghanistan
Afghanistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, is a landlocked country located in the centre of Asia, forming South Asia, Central Asia and the Middle East. With a population of about 29 million, it has an area of , making it the 42nd most populous and 41st largest nation in the world...
, Bangladesh
Bangladesh
Bangladesh , officially the People's Republic of Bangladesh is a sovereign state located in South Asia. It is bordered by India on all sides except for a small border with Burma to the far southeast and by the Bay of Bengal to the south...
, Bhutan
Bhutan
Bhutan , officially the Kingdom of Bhutan, is a landlocked state in South Asia, located at the eastern end of the Himalayas and bordered to the south, east and west by the Republic of India and to the north by the People's Republic of China...
, Cambodia
Cambodia
Cambodia , officially known as the Kingdom of Cambodia, is a country located in the southern portion of the Indochina Peninsula in Southeast Asia...
, India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
, Indonesia
Indonesia
Indonesia , officially the Republic of Indonesia , is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania. Indonesia is an archipelago comprising approximately 13,000 islands. It has 33 provinces with over 238 million people, and is the world's fourth most populous country. Indonesia is a republic, with an...
, Laos
Laos
Laos Lao: ສາທາລະນະລັດ ປະຊາທິປະໄຕ ປະຊາຊົນລາວ Sathalanalat Paxathipatai Paxaxon Lao, officially the Lao People's Democratic Republic, is a landlocked country in Southeast Asia, bordered by Burma and China to the northwest, Vietnam to the east, Cambodia to the south and Thailand to the west...
, Malaysia, Myanmar
Myanmar
Burma , officially the Republic of the Union of Myanmar , is a country in Southeast Asia. Burma is bordered by China on the northeast, Laos on the east, Thailand on the southeast, Bangladesh on the west, India on the northwest, the Bay of Bengal to the southwest, and the Andaman Sea on the south....
, Nepal
Nepal
Nepal , officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal, is a landlocked sovereign state located in South Asia. It is located in the Himalayas and bordered to the north by the People's Republic of China, and to the south, east, and west by the Republic of India...
, Pakistan
Pakistan
Pakistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan is a sovereign state in South Asia. It has a coastline along the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Oman in the south and is bordered by Afghanistan and Iran in the west, India in the east and China in the far northeast. In the north, Tajikistan...
, Papua New Guinea
Papua New Guinea
Papua New Guinea , officially the Independent State of Papua New Guinea, is a country in Oceania, occupying the eastern half of the island of New Guinea and numerous offshore islands...
, the Philippines
Philippines
The Philippines , officially known as the Republic of the Philippines , is a country in Southeast Asia in the western Pacific Ocean. To its north across the Luzon Strait lies Taiwan. West across the South China Sea sits Vietnam...
, Thailand
Thailand
Thailand , officially the Kingdom of Thailand , formerly known as Siam , is a country located at the centre of the Indochina peninsula and Southeast Asia. It is bordered to the north by Burma and Laos, to the east by Laos and Cambodia, to the south by the Gulf of Thailand and Malaysia, and to the...
, and Vietnam
Vietnam
Vietnam – sometimes spelled Viet Nam , officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam – is the easternmost country on the Indochina Peninsula in Southeast Asia. It is bordered by China to the north, Laos to the northwest, Cambodia to the southwest, and the South China Sea –...
(Simmons,2005.).
Ecology
M.muricola is a nocturnal and insectivorous bat. Though certain insects are not active all night but a lot are flying in the first two hours after sunset and before dawn (Richardson, 1993). M.muricola tends to feed at these active times by using ultrasonic echo-location. 'M.muricola' catch insectInsect
Insects are a class of living creatures within the arthropods that have a chitinous exoskeleton, a three-part body , three pairs of jointed legs, compound eyes, and two antennae...
in flight, perched on foliage or the ground, or from a water
Water
Water is a chemical substance with the chemical formula H2O. A water molecule contains one oxygen and two hydrogen atoms connected by covalent bonds. Water is a liquid at ambient conditions, but it often co-exists on Earth with its solid state, ice, and gaseous state . Water also exists in a...
surface. The small insects usually caught directly in the mouth. Larger ones be scooped out of the air by tail membrane and flip it to the mouth, or slapped the prey to the mouth with wing tips (Bonaccooso, 1998) . They do drink by obtaining moisture from the juicy insides of insects, swooping low over the surface of water
Water
Water is a chemical substance with the chemical formula H2O. A water molecule contains one oxygen and two hydrogen atoms connected by covalent bonds. Water is a liquid at ambient conditions, but it often co-exists on Earth with its solid state, ice, and gaseous state . Water also exists in a...
and droplets of water from the roof of tunnel or caves whilst roosting (Richardson, 1993).
They do emit high pitched sound that humans cannot hear called echolocation
Animal echolocation
Echolocation, also called biosonar, is the biological sonar used by several kinds of animals.Echolocating animals emit calls out to the environment and listen to the echoes of those calls that return from various objects near them. They use these echoes to locate and identify the objects...
. This ability enables M.muricola to find their way around in the dark and foraging. Bat
Bat
Bats are mammals of the order Chiroptera "hand" and pteron "wing") whose forelimbs form webbed wings, making them the only mammals naturally capable of true and sustained flight. By contrast, other mammals said to fly, such as flying squirrels, gliding possums, and colugos, glide rather than fly,...
s are social animals and like to colonize together, sometime roosting singly (Richardson, 1993).