University of Kansas Publications

Museum of Natural History




Volume 9, No. 14, pp. 389-396

December 19, 1958

Pleistocene Bats from San Josecito Cave,

Nuevo León, México

BY


J. KNOX JONES, JR.

University of Kansas

Lawrence


1958

University of Kansas Publications, Museum of Natural History



Editors: E. Raymond Hall, Chairman, Henry S. Fitch, Robert W. Wilson





Volume 9, No. 14, pp. 389-396

Published December 19, 1958





University of Kansas

Lawrence, Kansas





PRINTED IN

THE STATE PRINTING PLANT

TOPEKA, KANSAS

1958



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[Pg 391]

Pleistocene Bats from San Josecito Cave,

Nuevo León, México

BY



J. KNOX JONES, JR.

Some of the Pleistocene mammals from San Josecito Cave, near
Aramberri, Nuevo León, México, collected by field parties of the
California Institute of Technology under the direction of the late
Professor Chester Stock, have been reported previously (see Furlong,
1943; Cushing, 1945; Stock, 1950; Hooper, 1952; Findley,
1953; Stock, 1953; Handley, 1955; Jackway, 1958). In 1950, Professor
Stock loaned a portion of the San Josecito material to the
University of Kansas for identification. Included therein were 89
crania and rami of bats, representing three families (Phyllostomidae,
Desmodontidae and Vespertilionidae) and five genera, each represented
by a single species. One of the species is here described as
new. Three of the kinds are known only from the Pleistocene and
two are Recent species.

The only previous mention of fossil bats from México known to
me concerns material from San Josecito Cave. Cushing (1945:182)
mentioned a "vampire bat" from the cave (see also Maldonado-Koerdell,
1948:17), and Handley (1955:48) based his description of
Corynorhinus tetralophodon on a specimen from San Josecito.

Brief descriptions of the cave have been published by Miller
(1943) and Stock (1943). The precise age of the deposits is unknown;
stratification data did not accompany the material sent
on loan to the University of Kansas. However, most of the micro-fauna
is thought to have come from the higher levels in the cave
and is probably late Pleistocene.

The San Josecito Cave collections are currently the property of
the Los Angeles County Museum.

I am grateful to Dr. E. Raymond Hall for permission to study the
bats from San Josecito Cave, to Dr. Robert W. Wilson for criticism
of the manuscript, and to Mr. Philip Hershkovitz for permission to
use comparative material at the Chicago Natural History Museum.
Lucy Rempel made the drawings from photographs by John M.
Legler.

[Pg 392]

Leptonycteris nivalis (Saussure)

Remarks.—The long-nosed bats from San Josecito Cave do not
differ appreciably from Leptonycteris nivalis longala Stains, the
largest Recent subspecies of the species, and the subspecies that
occurs in the same geographic area today. Average and extremes
of three cranial measurements of 22 specimens from San Josecito
Cave, followed in parentheses by the average and extreme measurements
of 23 adult L. n. longala from the type locality, 12 mi. S and
2 mi. E Arteaga, 7500 ft., Coahuila (after Stains, 1957: 356), are:
Greatest length of skull, 28.2, 27.2-28.9 (27.5, 26.1-29.0); least interorbital
constriction, 5.0, 4.8-5.4 (4.8, 4.1-5.4); breadth of braincase,
11.1, 10.6-11.6 (10.7, 10.1-11.2). The San Josecito specimens average
larger than the series of Recent specimens in all of these measurements,
especially breadth of braincase, but there is considerable
overlap in each case and the extremes of greatest length of skull
and of least interorbital constriction do not exceed the extremes in
the Recent series.

Desmodus stocki, new species

Figs. 1-4. Fig. 1. Dorsal view of holotype of Desmodus
stocki, × 1-1/2. Fig. 2. Dorsal view of Desmodus rotundus murinus,
, KU 54969, La Mula, 13 mi. N Jaumave, Tamaulipas, ×
1-1/2. Fig. 3. Lateral view of left upper incisor of D. stocki,
LACM (CIT) 2950, × 2-1/2. Fig. 4. Lateral view of left upper
incisor of D. r. murinus, , KU 54967, La Mula, 13 mi. N Jaumave,
Tamaulipas, × 2-1/2.

Remarks.—The essential differences between D. stocki and D.
rotundus are in size and proportion. I do not doubt that the two
species are closely related; possibly stocki is ancestral to rotundus.

The species is named in honor of the late Professor Chester Stock,
under whose direction the fossil materials from San Josecito Cave
were obtained, and who, at the time of his death, was studying the
mammalian fauna from the cave.

Eptesicus cf. grandis (Brown)

Remarks.—This specimen is referred provisionally to E. grandis.
The dentition is larger and heavier, and the ridges and depressions
on the dorsal surface of the rostrum are more pronounced than
in Recent E. fuscus. The P4-M3 length is 6.1 (approximately 6.1
in the holotype of grandis, less in fuscus); least interorbital constriction,
4.2 (4.3 in the holotype of grandis, more in fuscus); breadth
of rostrum between infraorbital canals, 6.4; breadth across P4, 7.3.

[Pg 394]

Table 1.—Cranial measurements of two species of Desmodus.

Brown (1908:174) originally named grandis as a subspecies of
fuscus. Gidley and Gazin (1938:11) considered it a distinct species.
Whether grandis is only a subspecies of E. fuscus or a separate
species, grandis is closely related to fuscus, and probably is ancestral
to it.

Lasiurus cinereus (Palisot de Beauvois)

Remarks.—The cranium of No. 3160 is inseparable from those
of 10 spring-taken specimens of L. c. cinereus from the San Gabriel
Mts., Los Angeles Co., California (KU 49727, 49729-37). Measurements
of No. 3160, followed by the average and extremes (in parentheses)
of the Californian series, are: Condylobasal length, 16.1,
16.5 (15.9-17.2); zygomatic breadth, 12.3, 12.4 (12.0-12.7); least
interorbital constriction, 5.2, 5.4 (5.2-5.6); breadth of braincase,
8.7, 9.0 (8.5-9.3); length of palate not including terminal spine,
5.1, 5.3 (4.8-5.9). The teeth of the San Josecito specimen are comparatively
unworn. A label with the skull bears the notation "talus"[Pg 395]
in parentheses, which, in so far as I am able to determine, indicates
surface talus inside the cave. Therefore, the specimen in question
may be of Recent origin.

It is perhaps worthy of note that Lasiurus cinereus is primarily a
tree-dwelling bat, although a few Recent specimens have been reported
from caves (see Beer, 1954:116).

Corynorhinus tetralophodon Handley

A single cranium of a Corynorhinus LACM (CIT) 2989 was included
in the original materials sent to Kansas by Professor Stock.
Subsequently, this specimen was loaned to Charles O. Handley, Jr.,
who described it as a new species, C. tetralophodon. The latter is
said to differ from all other plecotine bats by the retention of a
well-developed fourth commissure (ridge extending posteroexternally
from metacone) on the M3 (Handley, 1955:48).

LITERATURE CITED

Beer, J. R.

1954. A record of the hoary bat from a cave. Jour. Mamm., 35:116, February 10.



Brown, B.

1908. The Conard Fissure, a Pleistocene bone deposit in northern Arkansas:
with description of two new genera and twenty new species
and subspecies of mammals. Mem. Amer. Mus. Nat., 9:155-208,
pls. 14-25.



Cushing, J. E., Jr.

1945. Quaternary rodents and lagomorphs of San Josecito Cave, Nuevo
Leon, Mexico. Jour. Mamm., 26:182-185, July 19.



Findley, J. S.

1953. Pleistocene Soricidae from San Josecito Cave, Nuevo Leon, Mexico.
Univ. Kansas Publ., Mus. Nat. Hist., 5:633-639, December 1.



Furlong, E. L.

1943. The Pleistocene antelope, Stockoceros conklingi, from San Josecito
Cave, Mexico. Carnegie Inst. Washington Publ., 551:1-8,
5 pls., February 3.



Gidley, J. W., and Gazin, C. L.

1938. The Pleistocene vertebrate fauna from Cumberland Cave, Maryland.
Bull. U. S. Nat. Mus., 171:vi + 99, 50 figs., 10 pls.



Handley, C. O., Jr.

1955. A new Pleistocene bat (Corynorhinus) from Mexico. Jour. Washington
Acad. Sci., 45:48-49, March 14.



Hooper, E. T.

1952. A systematic review of the harvest mice (genus Reithrodontomys)
of Latin America. Misc. Publ. Mus. Zool., Univ. Michigan, 77:1-255,
9 pls., 24 figs., 12 maps, January 16.

[Pg 396]

Maldonado-Koerdell, M.

1948. Los vertebrados fosiles del Cuaternario en México. Revista Soc.
Mexicana Hist. Nat., 9:1-35, June.



Jackway, G. E.

1958. Pleistocene Lagomorpha and Rodentia from the San Josecito Cave,
Nuevo León, México. Trans. Kansas Acad. Sci., 61: in press.



Miller, L.

1943. The Pleistocene birds of San Josecito Cavern, Mexico.  Univ.
California Publ. Zool., 47:143-168, April 20.



Stains, H. J.

1957. A new bat (genus Leptonycteris) from Coahuila. Univ. Kansas
Publ., Mus. Nat. Hist., 9:353-356, January 21.



Stock, C.

1943. The cave of San Josecito, Mexico. New discoveries of vertebrate
life of the ice age. Eng. Sci. Monthly, California Inst. Tech.,
Balch Grad. School Geol. Sci. Contrib., 361:1-5, September.

1950. Bears from the Pleistocene cave of San Josecito, Nuevo Leon,
Mexico. Jour. Washington Acad. Sci., 40:317-321, 1 fig., October 23.

1953. El caballo pleistocenico (Equus conversidens leoni, subsp. nov.)
de la cueva de San Josecito, Aramberra, Nuevo Leon. Mem. Congr.
Cient. Mex., 3:170-171.

Transmitted August 18, 1958.

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