Bioacoustics of Rhinolophus sinicus

Locality records and ecological notes : Himachal Pradesh : Happy valley ( 1550 m ), Saproon ( 1550 m ) and Salogra ( 1440 m ) in Solan district ( Saikia et al. 2011 ; present study) . Uttarakhand : Dharkuri ( 2700 m ), Rudraprayag district ( Wroughton 1914 as Rh. rouxii ) . The peak frequency was recorded at 87 kHz both in Himachal Pradesh (present study) and in Uttarakhand ( Chakravarty et al. 2020 ). In Himachal Pradesh , it can be told apart from Rh. affinis using acoustic characters (FmaxE 78 Khz) but in Uttarakhand their call frequencies overlap ( Chakravarty et al. 2020 ). Taxonomic note : Based on craniodental and molecular data, Thomas (2000) recognized the Himalayan form Rh. sinicus as a species different from peninsular Indian Rh. rouxii . Besides some differences in the wing measures and noseleaf structures, shorter palate length ( 1.9 mm in average) with the anterior border lying adjacent to the metacone of the first molar was cited as one of the distinctive characters of Rh. sinicus against Rh. rouxii ( Thomas 2000 ) . We compared our Himachal specimens in the light of the above characters and observed that the palatal bridge was slightly longer (mean= 2.4 mm ) with its anterior border extending beyond the metacone of the first molar. The upper canines of our specimens (albeit slightly worn out) were short, their height was at the level of the posterior premolar and did not seem to exceed the height of the second premolar considerably. Csorba et al. (2003) mentions this smaller upper canine as a distinguishing character of closely allied Rh. thomasi from Thailand . DNA sequences confirm the close phylogenetic relationships of the Indomalayan Rh. sinicus and Indochinese Rh. thomasi ( Figs 3 and 5 ) but contradict that they are related to morphologically similar Rh. rouxii and the Peninsular Indian clade. Indeed, the latter two taxa are much more divergent (>7%) and are phylogenetically unrelated, questioning the monophyly of the rouxii group defined by Csorba et al . (2003) .