Multivariate analysis of craniodental morphology in mouse-eared bats (Chiroptera, Vespertilionidae, Myotis) from Vietnam

Abstract

This study conducted biostatistical multivariate analyses on 23 craniodental morphological measurements from 209 specimens to study interspecific variations amongst 15 bat species of the genus Myotis in Vietnam. Univariate and multivariate analyses demonstrated that the studied species can be divided into four groups as follows: extra-large-sized species (M. chinensis), large-sized species (M. pilosus, M. indochinensis and M. annectans), medium-sized species (M. altarium, M. hasseltii, M. montivagus, M. horsfieldii, M. ater, M. laniger and M. muricola) and small-sized species (M. annamiticus, M. aff. siligorensis, M. rosseti and M. alticraniatus). Our data revealed that the main craniodental features contributing to the variations in distinguishing Myotis species are the width of the anterior palatal, least height of the coronoid process, length of the upper and lower canine-premolar, zygomatic width and width across the upper canines and lower premolar-molar length. Based on patterns of morphological differences, we conducted comparisons between morphometrically closely resembling species pairs and further discussed additional characteristics that are expected to support the taxonomy and systematics of Vietnamese Myotis bats.