Molecular And Morphometric Characterization Of Fruit Bats Of The Genus Rousettus Gray, 1821 (Chiroptera: Pteropodidae) In Iran

Interand intraspecific variation of fruit bats of the genus Rousettus in Iran were examined. Morphometric analyses of 7 external and 21 craniodental characters of material from southeast Iran showed that two species are found there, R. aegyptiacus and R. leschenaultii. Phylogenetic trees inferred from Bayesian inference and maximum likelihood analyses of the mitochondrial cytochrome b (cyt b) marker revealed that R. aegyptiacus populations are divided into five lineages and the Iranian population clustered with the Middle East samples. The result showed very low genetic variation between different populations of R. leschenaultii throughout its range in the Palaearctic and Indo-Malayan realms.