Shillong, June 15: Zoologists have discovered a new species of bat in Meghalaya.
A team of scientists from Zoological Survey of India, Shillong and those from the two natural history museums of Europe have published the discovery in the latest issue of the prominent taxonomic journal Zootaxa. Dr. Uttam Saikia, a scientist from Zoological Survey of India along with two other European bat taxonomists Dr. Gabor Csorba of the Hungarian Natural History Museum and Dr. Manuel Ruedi of the Natural History Museum of Geneva have reported the new species from a bamboo forest near Lailad in Ri-Bhoi district which is near the Nongkhyllem Wildlife Sanctuary.
Dr. Saikia captured two specimens of the species from the area in the summer of 2020. For describing the novel species, the researchers compared the Meghalaya specimens to a large series of specimens of all other species under the genus held in natural history museums across the world and came to the conclusion that the Meghalaya specimens represent a distinct species. The scientists have coined the species as Glischropus meghalayanus in honour of the state from where it was discovered and also in celebration of the 50th anniversary of statehood of Meghalaya in 2022.
Commonly called thick-thumbed bat, the researchers noted that the bat has typical fleshy pads on the thumb and soles of feet which aid them to crawl over smooth surfaces of bamboo internodes. Previously, four species of thick-thumbed bats were known globally and all were distributed in the Southeast Asian region. The discovery is the first report of a thick-thumbed bat from India and also from South Asia. Incidentally, the new species was discovered from the same locality form where the same group of scientists last year also reported the disk-footed bat in India.
Significantly, this is the first discovery of a new bat species from India in over a decade and highlights the immense opulence of biodiversity in Meghalaya. Since the locality from where the new bat has been discovered is adjacent to Nongkhyllem wild life sanctuary having similar vegetation, the researchers speculated that the bat might be available inside the sanctuary area as well. They also noted that this is the third species of specialist bamboo bat recorded in Nongkhyllem and surrounding areas and hence the bamboo dominated forests have significant conservation value and needs to be protected stringently. With the new discovery, the total number of bat species known from India stands at 131 species with Meghalaya harbouring the highest bat diversity in any Indian state with 67 species.
