Solving a mystery about animals in Vietnam

Over the past 65 years, the Big-eared Bats (Paracoelops megalotis) have existed as a mysterious animal in Vietnam. Many experts and a number of organizations have paid special attention, have invested funds to search for large ear lobes in our natural ecosystems but failed to achieve results.

Now, that mystery has been TS. Vu Dinh Thong, Institute of Ecology and Biological Resources (Vietnam Academy of Science and Technology), together with scientists from England, France, Germany and the Republic of Ireland clarified in a research project published on Zootaxa magazine.

The source of mystery

The beautiful nose-nosed bat has the scientific name Hipposideros pomona

In 1945, a Frenchman named André David-Beaulieu obtained a bat from Vinh City (Nghe An province). The specimen was processed into a dry specimen template with the number MNHN-ZM 1947-644 for research and display at the French National Museum of Natural History in Paris (MNHN). In 1947, Mr. Jean Dorst, then the director of the Museum, analyzed and described the above specimen of dried specimens. According to him, that bat sample belongs to the family of nose-nosed bat (Hipposideridae) and other known bat species.

Specifically, in the family of nasal sticky bat, only Coelops does not have tail and tail membrane is poorly developed. The bat sample collected in Vinh has the characteristics of Coelops because it has no tail but is different from Coelops because the tail membrane is very developed. Therefore, he classified that bat sample in a new breed with the scientific name Paracoelops (the 'Para' prefix in Latin means 'similar', 'parallel' .). On the other hand, bat samples collected in Vinh with pinna are very developed so he named the species 'megalotis' ('mega' means big, wide; 'lotis' means pinna). The content describes new varieties and species of bats posted on MNHN's newsletter.

From a scientific perspective

Since 1947, the Big-eared bat has been considered a unique and endemic bat species of Vietnam because there is no additional record in the whole world. Many experts and some organizations at home and abroad have paid special attention to this bat. Many projects that investigate bats with extensive scope and scale have been carried out in different areas of the Central region for the purpose of searching for large ear lobes in natural ecosystems. Therefore, the Big-eared Bats have been included in the Vietnam Red Book of 2000 and 2007. In the Red List of the World Association for Conservation of Nature, the large ear lobes have been classified as 'CR' (extreme Endangered period) from 1996 to 2007 and since 2008 has been classified as 'DD' (lack of data).

July 7, 2010, TS. Vu Dinh Thong went to the French National Museum of Natural History in Paris to study and examine the form MNHN-ZM 1947-644. Test, analysis and research results show that the description of author Jean Dorst does not reflect the characteristics of that bat sample. In fact, the tail of the bat has been withdrawn during the drying process. On the tail membrane, traces of the tail are not present on the abdomen but are visible on the dorsal surface. On the other hand, the size and characteristics of the pinna are similar to those of some known bat species in Vietnam. Based on the results of data, detailed morphological characteristics of the external, bone and teeth structure of the specimen, TS. Vu Dinh Thong and colleagues concluded that Paracoelops and Paracoelops megalotis are in fact the result of a misclassification of an incomplete specimen of the beautiful nose-nosed bat named scientific name Hipposideros Pomona. On October 3, the results of that study were officially published in Zootaxa Magazine, No. 3505.