Postnatal growth, wing development and age estimations in the Mediterranean horseshoe batRhinolophus euryale(Chiroptera: Rhinolophidae) in Kerend cave, western Iran

Abstract

We quantified postnatal changes in body mass, length of forearm, length of total gap of the fourth metacarpal-phalangeal joint and changes in wing morphology, including the wingspan, wing area, handwing length, handwing area, armwing length, armwing area, aspect ratio and wing loading in Rhinolophus euryale in a maternity roost in Kerend cave, western Iran. Mean body mass of pups increased linearly until 23 days, when they achieved 74.29% of the mean mass of adult females (11.28±0.74 g, n=12). Rates of body mass gain and forearm growth during the early stage of postnatal growth were 0.36 g/day and 1.41 mm/day, respectively. Length of epiphyseal gap increased during the first 3 weeks and subsequently followed by a linear decrease until day 70 when it closed. Wing characteristics increased linearly until the age of the first flight, after which growth rates significantly declined (all p<0.05). Wing loading decreased linearly (−0.09 Nm−2/day) until 36 days of age and thereafter increased to a maximum of 6.56±0.30 Nm−2 at 80 days of age. We compare our results with data obtained from close-related bat species, particularly Rhinolophus mehelyi previously studied in a nearby area.

Prenatal Developmental Trajectories of Fluctuating Asymmetry in Bat Humeri

“…Multiple studies have documented postnatal development of flight in bats, describing the altricial development of the forelimb in bats followed by accelerated bone elongation (Hughes and Rayner, 1993;Kunz and Robson, 1995;Kunz et al, 2009;Lin et al, 2010;Eghbali et al, 2017;Eghbali and Sharifi, 2018). First flights in most species that have been studied occur consistently in synchrony with weaning, usually a couple of weeks after birth once adult body dimensions are reached (Hughes and Rayner, 1993;Kunz and Robson, 1995;Kunz et al, 2009;Lin et al, 2010;Eghbali et al, 2017;Eghbali and Sharifi, 2018). We hypothesize that because self-powered flight is not achieved immediately after birth, bone elongation asymmetry and compensatory growth to optimize wing proportions would be less constrained prenatally (Ueti et al, 2015).…”

Postcranial heterochrony, modularity, integration and disparity in the prenatal ossification in bats (Chiroptera)

“…Our two sets of results could indicate that the functional differences between the forelimb and hindlimb in adult bats are not reflected during prenatal development [ 15 , 108 ]. Moreover, integrated development of homologous structures could facilitate morphological diversity, enabling novel functional ecologies to evolve [ 46 , 59 , 62 , 109 ].…”

Bat Research Networks and Viral Surveillance: Gaps and Opportunities in Western Asia

“…Currently bat research within Western Asia is restricted and fragmented, primarily driven by a small number of dedicated individual researchers based at academic, government, and non-governmental institutions. These researchers are leading efforts to discover new species and address knowledge gaps in topics such as bat diversity, distribution, taxonomy, and conservation [93,98,102,135,136,137,138,139,140]. A few existing networks in the region are aligned with WAB-Net and will be included as part of this multinational One Health initiative.…”