Morphometric Analysis of Bats (Chiroptera) in the Campus Area of the University of Bengkulu, Using Principal Component Analysis

Abstract

Bats are the true flying mammals in the world. Morphological identification based upon morphometric characteristics will needed to determine the type of bat species, particularly the closely related species with the high level of morphological similarity. This study was aimed to determine the distinguishing characteristics between bat species found in the campus area of the University of Bengkulu. Bats were caught using mist net. The data of body morphometric measurement of each bat was analyzed using the software of MINITAB 18. As a result, there were four species, namely Cynopterus branchyotis, Cynopterus sphinx of the suborder Megachiroptera, Macroglossus sobrinus, and Rhinolophus stheno of the suborder Microchiroptera. The main distinguishing morphometric characteristics between species within genus were forearm length and tibia length. Based on the morphometric characteristic of all bat species found in this study, Cynopterus branchyotis and Cynopterus sphinx was found to be the most closely related with a Similarity Index of 77.99%, while the Similarity Index between the species and Rhinolophus stheno was 28.87%. Moreover, the lowest Similarity Index was obtained between the species and Macroglossus sobrinus of only 0.01%.