Abstract
Vision is an extremely important sense in bats and can influence foraging activities. The present study aimed to evaluate morphometric aspects of the eyeballs of Neotropical bats with different feeding habits. Based on the hypothesis that frugivorous and nectarivorous bats likely possess better visual resolution compared to insectivorous and sanguivorous species due to their foraging modes, we predicted that these bats would have larger eyeballs and internal eye structures comparable to those of insectivorous and blood-eating species. Histological analysis allowed for estimating the thickness of the cornea, choroid, sclera, and retina, as well as counting the number of photoreceptor cells in the external nuclear layer of the retina of two frugivorous species (Artibeus obscurus, A. planirostris), two nectarivorous species (Glossophaga soricina, Anoura geoffroyi), two blood-eating species (Diphylla ecaudata, Desmodus rotundus), and one insectivorous species (Nyctinomops laticaudatus). Macroscopic measurements were obtained in four of these species. There is a statistically significant relationship between the type of diet and the morphological differences of the eyeball, confirming our predictions regarding fruit bats, which presented the highest means of ocular parameters while the insectivorous N. laticaudatus and the nectarivorous G. soricina exhibited the lowest. These latter two species had a thinner cornea, indicating a possible lower refractive power and, consequently, lower visual acuity. The blood-eating species showed divergent results. Additionally, the insectivorous N. laticaudatus also had a smaller number of photoreceptor cell nuclei in the outer nuclear layer of the retina, possibly indicating less transduction of light signals by the retina.
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Acknowledgements
We thank Fundo de Incentivo à Pesquisa (FIP—PUC Minas) for funding the project, Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq) for the scholarship granted to MBA. To Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES) for the scholarship granted to ARL. We thank the Instituto Brasileiro Chico Mendes de Conservação da Biodiversidade (ICMBIO) for the licenses to capture the animals, the Instituto Mineiro de Agropecuária for the donation of Desmodus rotundus and Diphylla ecaudata, and the team at Fazenda Cauaia and Serra da Piedade Reserve for allowing the collection of bats.
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Fundo de Incentivo à Pesquisa – FIP PUC Minas. Grant/Award Number: 028/2018.
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Conceptualization: Marcela Avellar, Amanda Lacerda, Hugo P. Godinho, Sônia A. Talamoni; Methodology: Marcela Avellar, Amanda Lacerda, Hugo P. Godinho, Sônia A. Talamoni; Formal analysis and investigation: Marcela Avellar, Amanda Lacerda, Hugo P. Godinho, Sônia A. Talamoni; Writing—original draft preparation: Marcela Avellar, Amanda Lacerda, Hugo P. Godinho, Sônia A. Talamoni; Writing—review and editing: Marcela Avellar, Amanda Lacerda, Hugo P. Godinho, Sônia A. Talamoni; Funding acquisition: Sônia A. Talamoni; Resources: Sônia A. Talamoni; Supervision: Hugo P. Godinho, Sônia A. Talamoni; Data curation: Marcela Avellar, Amanda Lacerda, Sônia A. Talamoni; Visualization: Marcela Avellar, Amanda Lacerda, Sônia A. Talamoni; Project administration: Sônia A. Talamoni; Software: Sônia A. Talamoni; Validation: Hugo P. Godinho, Sônia A. Talamoni.
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This work followed the ethical principles of care internationally adopted and was approved by the Ethics Committee in Use of Animals of the Pontifical Catholic University of Minas Gerais (CEUA#28/2018). Individuals of the species A. obscurus, A. planirostris, G. soricina, and N. laticaudatus were collected under the authorization number 64935–1, and individuals of A. geoffroyi were collected with authorization number 45686-3, both granted by the Chico Mendes Institute for Biodiversity Protection (ICMBio, Ministry of the Environment). The animals in this study were previously collected for the study of their reproductive biology (Viana et al. 2018, 2022). All specimens are deposited in the reference collection of the Pontifícia Universidade Católica de Minas Gerais.
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de Avellar, M.B.C., de Almeida Lacerda, A.R., Godinho, H.P. et al. Morphology of the eyeball of Neotropical bats with different feeding habits. Zoomorphology (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00435-024-00660-9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00435-024-00660-9