Morphological Variations of Bats, Cynopterus in Mt. Duasudara Nature Reserves, North Sulawesi, Indonesia

Abstract

Bats belong to family pteropodidae evenly distributed in Indonesia. Genus Cynopterus has intraspecific morphological diversity based on their characteristics, one of which is food-feeding bat of Cynopterus (Chiroptera: Pteropodidae). This study aims identify the morphological variations and the effect of sex of Cynopterus bats in the Nature Reserves of Mt. Duasudara, North Sulawesi. The study site is inhabited by 7 major vegetations, such as moss forest, sub montane, lowland forest, casuarina, coastal forest, bushes, and reeds at the position of 0-1,351m above sea level. Results found 337 individuals, 84 C. brachyotis, 112 C. luzoniensis, and 141 C. minutus, respectively. Moreover, sex, in fact, affected the skull characters and the external parts of C. brachyotis, C. luzoniensis, and C. minutus. Descritptive statistics and ANOVA of 18 skull characters and 7 external body parts of 30 adult specimens indicated specieshad no sexual dimorphism in FL of C. brachyotis, FA of C. luzoniensis, and GSL, CCL, SV, and FA of C. minutus. In addition, Cynopterus bracyotis, C. minutus, and C. luzoniensis are morphologically different in GSL, CCL, SV and FA. Based on GSL, ZB, MSF, LIW, C1-C1 and FA. C. luzoniensis and C. brachyotis that are close to C. minutus, are correct identification. Moreover, C. luzoniensis separated from other Cynopterus was based on two functions, function 1 describes 70.6% of total variance and function 2 covers29.4% of total variance. Higher data variance in function 1 than that infunction 2 reflects that various morphological differences involving skull and external body sizes are crucial in grouping species of genus Cynopterus.