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Abstract.
Mitochondrial cytochrome b sequences have been identified in Miniopterus schreibersii (Kuhi, 1817) from the Oriental-Australasian areas. All phylogenetic analyses indicate that the Oriental-Australasian M. schreibersii diverged from the Spanish M. schreibersii, with the mean percentage sequence differences ranging from 15.81% to 18.92% between them. A large and significant percentage sequence difference (10.91%) also separated the Chinese/Japanese specimens from the Australian specimens. Our molecular results corroborate a previous report based on morphological characters by Maeda (1982), which suggested that Miniopterus schreibersii in Europe, Asia and Australia should be regarded as three distinct species, named Miniopterus schreibersii, M. fuliginosus and M. oceanensis. However, the specimen from Hainan should be grouped together with the other Chinese specimens in one species. The results also confirmed Appleton's recent molecular study on Oriental-Australasian Miniopterus schreibersii.
Key words: phylogeny, species status, mitochondrial DNA
Introduction
Schreibers' long fingered bat, Miniopterus schreibersii, is a vespertilionid species with a very wide distribution covering southern Europe, Asia, Northern Africa, the Solomon Islands, Philippines and Northern and Eastern Australia (Corbel & Hill 1980, Nowak 1991, Tan 1992). Due to the extensive overlap of morphological variations within the cosmopolitan M. schreibersii complex, the detailed classification of M. schreibersii is highly debated. While some authors treat the entire complex as a single species throughout the Old World, with several subspecies (Tate 1941, Wilson &Reeder 1993), others divide it into several species (Maeda 1982). Many authors have followed Tale's classification (Ellerman &Morrison-Scott 1951,Corbet 1978, Corbel &Hill 1980), in spile of serious reservalions by others (Maeda 1982). Based on the exact measurements for external and skull characters, Maeda (1982) regarded M. schreibersii in Europe, Asia (excluding Hainan Island) and Australia as three distinct species which he named M. schreibersii, M.fuliginosus and M. oceanensis. The species from Hainan Island was given a separate species status as M. macrodens (Maeda 1982). However, Koopman (1993) and Corbet & Hill (1992) disagreed with Maeda's classification. Molecular studies, which focused on the taxonomy of M. schreibersii (Cardinal &Chirstidis 2000, Mi11er - Butterworth et al. 2002, Barragan et al. 2002), did not address the detailed classification scheme. Most recently, Appleton et al. (2004) reported on the molecular systematic and biogeography of M. schreibersii using mitochondrial ND2 gene analysis. They studied M. schreibersii from the...