Abstract
Species identification is pivotal in taxonomy, systematics, evolutionary biology and conservation biology. We collected bats that died of natural causes in Shihezi city, Xinjiang, China, and carried out morphological and genetic identification. Morphologically, all individuals were adults/subadults or juveniles of Pipistrellus pipistrellus. We found one haplotype for the mitochondrial gene ND1 and five for the mitochondrial gene cytochrome b (Cytb) among six specimens. Phylogenetically, all the Cytb sequences grouped with P. pipistrellus. We confirm this species’ occurrence in Xinjiang, China.
Acknowledgements
We thank Prof. Matthew H. Dick (Hokkaido University) for the English editing and two anonymous reviewers and editors for their constructive comments.
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Author contributions: S.A. conceived the study; L.K., P.Z., B.J., and W.C. performed the research under the supervision of S.A.; S.A. and T.K. analyzed the data and wrote the manuscript. All the authors have accepted responsibility for the entire content of this submitted manuscript and approved the submission.
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Research funding: This work was financially supported as a Shihezi University High-Level Talents’ Research Initiation Project (RCZK201951 to S.A.) and in part by the Students’ Research Program of Shihezi University (support to L.K., P.Z., B.J., and W.C.).
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Conflict of interest statement: The authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest regarding this article.
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Research ethics: The experimental procedures in the study were in accordance with The Ethics Committee of Shihezi University. All of the animals studied died naturally and were dealt with according to the recommendations in the guide for animal use in research: Russell, W. M. S. (2004). The use of non-human animals in research: a guide for scientists. Altern Lab Anim 32: 119–120.
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Supplementary Material
The online version of this article offers supplementary material (https://doi.org/10.1515/mammalia-2021-0045).
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