Antrozoini

Antrozoini is a tribe of bats in the subfamily Vespertilioninae of the family Vespertilionidae. It contains the pallid bat (''Antrozous pallidus''), Van Gelder's bat (''Bauerus dubiaquercus''), the genus ''Rhogeessa'', and the fossil '' Anzanycteris''. All species in this tribe are found in the Americas.

Taxonomy

The pallid bat (''Antrozous pallidus'') was first described in 1856 and first placed in its own genus, ''Antrozous'', in 1862. Several suggestions were made early on about its relationships, including that of Wilhelm Peters in 1865, who placed it in the family Vespertilionidae and considered it to be related to the Australian '' Nyctophilus''. Others suggested a relationship with the vespertilionid genus ''Plecotus'' or the Phyllostomidae. In 1897, Gerrit S. Miller described a subfamily Antrozoinae for the pallid bat, but ten years later chose to place ''Nyctophilus'' and ''Antrozous'' together in a subfamily Nyctophilinae.Miller, 1907, pp. 234–235

Van Gelder's bat was described in 1959 as ''Antrozous (Bauerus) dubiaquercus''; subsequently, the species has been placed in its own genus, ''Bauerus'', while others have retained it in ''Antrozous'' with its close relative, the pallid bat, with the current consensus being toward placing them in separate genera. In 1970, Karl F. Koopman and J. Knox Jones recognized a tribe Antrozoini (comprising only ''Antrozous'' and ''Bauerus''), which they still placed within Nyctophilinae. In a separate 1970 paper, however, Koopman questioned the affinities between the North American antrozoines and the Australasian ''Nyctophilus'' on the basis of biogeography.Roehrs et al., 2010, p. 1081 The next year, Ronald Pine and colleagues further questioned this relationship on the basis of baculum (penis bone) characters, although they cautioned that more penes of ''Bauerus'' needed to be studied. Since then, Antrozoini has generally been considered a valid tribe in the subfamily Vespertilioninae, which includes most members of Vespertilionidae.

In 1998, Nancy B. Simmons argued that Antrozoini was not, in fact, closely related to other Vespertilioninae and instead placed the two species in their own family, Antrozoidae, which she considered closer to the Molossidae, another family of bats. However, this hypothesis was later refuted by DNA sequence data, which indicated that the Antrozoini nested within Vespertilioninae. Therefore, Simmons placed the two species in Vespertilionidae in the 2005 third edition of '' Mammal Species of the World'', but she kept them as a subfamily separate from Vespertilioninae, called Antrozoinae, because of continued phylogenetic uncertainty.Simmons, 2005, p. 498 However all DNA studies place antrozoines in Vespertilioninae, and this led Steven Hoofer and Ronald Van Den Bussche (2003) as well as Zachary Roehrs and colleagues (2010) to classify them as a tribe, Antrozoini, within that subfamily.

Hoofer and Van Den Bussche, who used mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) sequences in their study, also expanded Antrozoini to include the American genera ''Rhogeessa'' and ''Baeodon'' (which are often combined as ''Rhogeessa''). These genera were previously placed in the tribe Nycticeiini and considered to be related to the Old World genus ''Otonycteris''. In their 2010 paper, Roehrs and colleagues again found that mtDNA sequences supported a relationship between ''Antrozous'', ''Bauerus'', ''Rhogeessa'', and ''Baeodon'', but what limited nuclear DNA data for ''Baeodon'' they had suggested that the genus may be more closely related to ''Lasiurus''.

Distribution and fossil record

The pallid bat occurs in northern Mexico, the western United States (east to Kansas and Texas), and marginally southwestern Canada ( British Columbia). It is also found on Cuba; the population there has been classified as a separate species, ''Antrozous koopmani'', by some authorities, but it is now included in the pallid bat. Van Gelder's bat is found from Nayarit in western Mexico south and east to Costa Rica. Most species of ''Rhogeessa'' occur in Mexico, but several occur further south, reaching to Bolivia and Brazil. The single species of ''Baeodon'', ''B. alleni'', is restricted to Mexico.

The oldest fossils identified as ''Antrozous'' come from the Barstovian (Middle Miocene) of Nebraska; however, their attribution to the genus is tentative. Undoubted ''Antrozous'' come from the Hemphillian (Late Miocene) of Texas and additional fossils are from the Pliocene of Texas, Idaho, and Florida. No fossils of ''Bauerus'' or ''Baeodon'' are known; the only fossils of ''Rhogeessa'' come from the Pleistocene of Inciarte in Venezuela. In 1969, John A. White named the genus '' Anzanycteris'' on the basis of Pliocene fossils from California (originally identified as Pleistocene) and included it in Nyctophilinae. Later, Malcolm C. McKenna and Susan K. Bell listed ''Anzanycteris'' under Antrozoini in their 1997 ''Classification of Mammals''.White, 1969; McKenna and Bell, 1997, p. 322

References

Literature cited

*Czaplewski, N.J. 1993
''Pizonyx wheeleri'' Dalquest and Patrick (Mammalia: Chiroptera) from the Miocene of Texas referred to the genus ''Antrozous'' H. Allen
(subscription required). Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology 13(3):378–380.
*Czaplewski, N.J., Rincón, A.D. and Morgan, G.S. 2005. Fossil bat (Mammalia: Chiroptera) remains from Inciarte Tar Pit, Sierra de Perijá, Venezuela. Caribbean Journal of Science 41(4):768–781.
*Hoofer, S.R. and Van Den Bussche, R.A. 2001
Phylogenetic relationships of plecotine bats and allies based on mitochondrial ribosomal sequences
(subscription required). Journal of Mammalogy 82(1):131–137.
*Hoofer, S.R. and Van Den Bussche, R.A. 2003. Molecular phylogenetics of the chiropteran family Vespertilionidae. Acta Chiropterologica 5(supplement):1–63.
*Kays, R.W. and Wilson, D.E. 2000
Mammals of North America
Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 240 pp. 
*McKenna, M.C. and Bell, S.K. 1997. Classification of Mammals: Above the species level. New York: Columbia University Press, 631 pp. 
*Miller, G.S., Jr. 1897
Revision of the North American bats of the family Vespertilionidae
North American Fauna 13:1–136.
*Miller, G.S., Jr. 1907
The families and genera of bats
Bulletin of the United States National Museum 57:1–282.
*Pine, R.H., Carter, D.C. and LaVal, R.K. 1971
Status of ''Bauerus'' Van Gelder and its relationships to other nyctophiline bats
(subscription required). Journal of Mammalogy 52(4):663–669.
*Roehrs, Z.P., Lack, J.B. and Van Den Bussche, R.A. 2010
Tribal phylogenetic relationships within Vespertilioninae (Chiroptera: Vespertilionidae) based on mitochondrial and nuclear sequence data
(subscription required). Journal of Mammalogy 91(5):1073–1092.
*Simmons, N.B. 2005. Order Chiroptera. Pp. 312–529 in Wilson, D.E. and Reeder, D.M. (eds.)
Mammal Species of the World: a taxonomic and geographic reference
3rd ed. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2 vols., 2142 pp. 
*White, J. A. 1969
Late Cenozoic bats (subfamily Nyctophilinae) from the Anza-Borrego Desert of California
Miscellaneous Publications of the Museum of Natural History, University of Kansas 51:275–282.

Further reading

*Allen, H. 1862
Descriptions of two new species of Vespertilionide, and some remarks on the genus Antrozous
Proceedings of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia 14(1):246–248.
*Koopman, K.F. 1970. Zoogeography of bats. Pp. 29–50 in Slaughter, B.H. and Walton, D.W. (eds.). About Bats: a Chiropteran Biology Symposium. Dallas: Southern Methodist University Press.
*Koopman, K.F. and Jones, J.K., Jr. 1970. Classification of bats. Pp. 22–28 in Slaughter, B.H. and Walton, D.W. (eds.). About Bats: a Chiropteran Biology Symposium. Dallas: Southern Methodist University Press.
*Simmons, N.B. 1998. A reappraisal of interfamilial relationships of bats. Pp. 3–26 in Kunz, T.H. and Racey, P.A. (eds.). Bat Biology and Conservation. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press.

{{Taxonbar, from=Q4777377

Vesper bats
Taxa named by Gerrit Smith Miller Jr.