Paul Velazco with a Vampyrum spectrum. Distribution range of species formerly ascribed to Sturnira lilium (gray tone) and the type localities (stars) of species in the S. lilium complex. Scientists at  's Field Museum and 's have discovered three new species of yellow-shouldered bats, , in the . On Wednesday open-access journal published their paper on two of the new species, Sturnira bakeri and Sturnira burtonlimi. The two new species were previously confused with S. ludovici, and S. lilium and S. luisi, respectively. With the discovery, genus Sturnira now has the most species of any genus in family , the leaf-nosed bats. Within the New World tropics, the of the genus, the new species' known living areas are in and for S. burtonlimi, and Western  for S. bakeri. The researchers identified differences between different specimens, including those in their teeth, skull shapes, and DNA sequences. Did you conduct field study to identify the species' habits? If so, where and how did you do that? PMV: I have done fieldwork in and , and my coauthor did field work in  , Ecuador, and Peru, where we collected several specimens of Sturnira (including the third species that has not been described yet). But the two species that were described in the ZooKeys paper are based on specimens collected by our colleagues Dr. Robert Baker from  and Dr. Burton Lim from the  . Who do you collaborate with internationally about your study? PMV: For this study I collaborated directly with Dr. Bruce Patterson from the Field Museum of Natural History, but studies like this cannot be completed without the contribution of scientific collections. We used specimens from the American Museum of Natural History, ,  , , Museo de Historia Natural de la , Museo de Zoología of the , at , , , and the .
Paul Velazco with a Vampyrum spectrum. Distribution range of species formerly ascribed to Sturnira lilium (gray tone) and the type localities (stars) of species in the S. lilium complex. Scientists at Chicago 's Field Museum and New York's American Museum of Natural History have discovered three new species of yellow-shouldered bats, , in the . On Wednesday open-access journal published their paper on two of the new species, Sturnira bakeri and Sturnira burtonlimi. The two new species were previously confused with S. ludovici, and S. lilium and S. luisi, respectively. With the discovery, genus Sturnira now has the most species of any genus in family , the leaf-nosed bats. Within the New World tropics, the of the genus, the new species' known living areas are in Costa Rica and Panama for S. burtonlimi, and Western Ecuador for S. bakeri. The researchers identified differences between different specimens, including those in their teeth, skull shapes, and DNA sequences. Did you conduct field study to identify the species' habits? If so, where and how did you do that? PMV: I have done fieldwork in Belize and Peru , and my coauthor did field work in Brazil , Ecuador, and Peru, where we collected several specimens of Sturnira (including the third species that has not been described yet). But the two species that were described in the ZooKeys paper are based on specimens collected by our colleagues Dr. Robert Baker from Texas Tech University and Dr. Burton Lim from the Royal Ontario Museum . Who do you collaborate with internationally about your study? PMV: For this study I collaborated directly with Dr. Bruce Patterson from the Field Museum of Natural History, but studies like this cannot be completed without the contribution of scientific collections. We used specimens from the American Museum of Natural History, , Louisiana State University , , Museo de Historia Natural de la , Museo de Zoología of the , at , Royal Ontario Museum, Texas Tech University , and the .
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Chicago
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's
New York's American Museum of Natural History
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and
Costa Rica and Panama
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Ecuador
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and
Belize and Peru
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Brazil
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Texas Tech University
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Royal Ontario Museum
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Louisiana State University
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,
Royal Ontario Museum, Texas Tech University