Produced by Chris Curnow, Joseph Cooper, Tom Cosmas and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
Text Emphasis ================ _Text_ - Italics =Text= - Bold
Symbolic Representations ============================== [F] Female symbol [M] Male symbol [BC] Circle Black [TW] Circle Top White [RW] Circle Right White [BW] Circle Bottom White [LW] Circle Left White [RTW] Circle Right Third White [LTW] Circle Left Third White
Vol. 16, No. 8, pp. 777-837, 17 figures in text
Systematics of Megachiropteran Bats in the Solomon Islands
UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS PUBLICATIONS, MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY
Editorial Committee: E. Raymond Hall, Chairman; Frank B. Cross, Editor; Henry S. Fitch; J. Knox Jones, Jr.
Systematics of Megachiropteran Bats in the Solomon Islands
_Rousettus amplexicaudatus hedigeri_ Pohle 788
_Pteropus hypomelanus luteus_ Andersen 796
_Pteropus admiralitatum solomonis_ Thomas 796
_Pteropus admiralitatum colonus_ Andersen 796
_Pteropus tonganus geddiei_ MacGillivary 798
_Pteropus rayneri lavellanus_ Andersen 802
_Pteropus rayneri monoensis_ Lawrence 803
_Pteropus rayneri rennelli_ Troughton 804
_Macroglossus lagochilus microtus_ Andersen 813
_Nyctimene albiventer bougainville_ Troughton 818
_Nyctimene albiventer_ new subspecies 819
The Solomon Islands constitute an archipelago east of the large island of New Guinea and more than a thousand miles off the northeastern coast of Australia. This archipelago, which is principally of volcanic origin although sedimentary layers of calcareous rocks occur on many islands (Lever, 1934; Belkin, 1962), consists of a double chain of islands having a northwest-southeast axis of more than 600 miles. The archipelago is more or less an extension of New Guinea and in fact is connected to it in stepping-stone fashion by New Britain, New Ireland, and numerous smaller islands (see Fig. 1).
Australia and New Guinea have many kinds of mammals but the only terrestrial mammals in the Solomon Islands are a species of the genus _Phalanger_ (order Marsupialia), and several species of four genera of rodents, one genus of which probably was introduced by man. Additionally, several kinds of bats have reached and colonized the Solomon Islands.