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Cranial Biometrics of the Iberian Myotis myotis/Myotis blythii Complex: New Data for Studying the Fossil Record

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Abstract

The Myotis myotis/M. blythii species complex, spread across the Western Palearctic, is a problematic group for which the taxonomy of the species is not yet satisfactorily resolved. The Iberian Peninsula played a key role in its evolutionary history as a Pleistocene refuge and as the starting point for the eastward expansion of M. myotis in the early Holocene, while M. blythii reached the Iberian Peninsula only during the middle Holocene. The study of Iberian populations and particularly of the Iberian fossil record is of high interest in this regard. However, there are few data available on the biometry of the skulls and teeth of Iberian populations (which differ somewhat in size from those of other regions of Europe and Asia) or tools for the identification of fragmentary cranial remains. Much of the Quaternary Iberian record of large Myotis remains unassigned. Here, we contribute to the task of determining fragmentary cranial remains by providing new cranial and dental biometric data from extant Iberian populations, predictive models for isolated upper molar identification, and a set of indices that allow quantitative evaluation of the differences in anatomical traits (in skull and molars) between the two species.

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Acknowledgements

We are very grateful to the curators of the Collection of the Estación Biológica de Doñana (EBD-CSIC) and the specialists in Chiroptera C. Ibáñez and J. Juste. We would like to acknowledge our colleague J. Esteve for his advice on data processing during the first stages of the study, and E. Ángel for his help with statistics. R. Glasgow corrected the English of the manuscript. The two anonymous referees have greatly improved the quality of the work with their comments. The projects MICICINN CGL2012-38434-C03-01, CGL2012-38434-C03-03, CGL2012-38358, CGL2015-65387-C3-2-P (MINECO/FEDER), and the institutions Junta de Castilla y León, Fundación Atapuerca and Grupos Consolidados del Gobierno de Aragón made this work possible. J. Galán and C. Núñez-Lahuerta are recipients of PhD grants from the Diputación General de Aragón (DGA), co-financed by the European Social Fund (FSE) of the European Union.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Earth Science, Area of Palaeontology, University of Zaragoza, 12 Pedro Cerbuna Street, 50009, Zaragoza, Spain

    Julia Galán, Carmen Núñez-Lahuerta, Víctor Sauqué & Gloria Cuenca-Bescós

  2. Aragosaurus-IUCA, University of Zaragoza, 12 Pedro Cerbuna Street, 50009, Zaragoza, Spain

    Julia Galán, Carmen Núñez-Lahuerta, Víctor Sauqué, Gloria Cuenca-Bescós & Juan Manuel López-García

  3. IPHES, University of Rovira i Virgil, Sescelades Campus, building W3, 43007, Tarragona, Spain

    Juan Manuel López-García

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  1. Julia Galán
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  2. Carmen Núñez-Lahuerta
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  4. Gloria Cuenca-Bescós
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Correspondence to Julia Galán.

Electronic supplementary material

10914_2018_9427_MOESM1_ESM.docx

List of specimens analyzed. MCNZ: Museo de Ciencias Naturales de Zaragoza; MCNM: Museo de Ciencias Naturales de Madrid; EDB-CSIC: Estación Biológica de Doñana-Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas; N-Sp: Northern Spain; S-Sp: Southern Spain; C-Sp: Central Spain; Med-Sp: Mediterranean Spain; M: male; F: female. (DOCX 28 kb)

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Galán, J., Núñez-Lahuerta, C., Sauqué, V. et al. Cranial Biometrics of the Iberian Myotis myotis/Myotis blythii Complex: New Data for Studying the Fossil Record. J Mammal Evol 26, 333–344 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10914-018-9427-z

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