A phylogeny for African<i>Pipistrellus</i>species with the description of a new species from West Africa (Mammalia: Chiroptera)
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Abstract Pipistrelloid bats are among the most poorly known bats in Africa, a status no doubt exacerbated by their small size, drab brown fur and general similarity in external morphology. The systematic relationships of these bats have been a matter of debate for decades, and despite some recent molecular studies, much confusion remains. Adding to the confusion has been the recent discovery of numerous new species. Using two mitochondrial genes, we present a phylogeny for this group that supports the existence of three main clades in Africa: Pipistrellus, Neoromicia and the recently described Parahypsugo. However, the basal branches of the tree are poorly supported. Using an integrative taxonomic approach, we describe a new species of Pipistrellus sp. nov. from West Africa, which has been cited as Pipistrellus cf. grandidieri in the literature. We demonstrate that it is not closely related to Pipistrellus grandidieri from East Africa, but instead is sister to Pipistrellus hesperidus. Furthermore, the species Pi. grandidieri appears to be embedded in the newly described genus Parahypsugo, and is therefore better placed in that genus than in Pipistrellus. This has important taxonomic implications, because a new subgenus (Afropipistrellus) described for Pi. grandidieri predates Parahypsugo and should therefore be used for the entire “Parahypsugo” clade. The Upper Guinea rainforest zone, and particularly the upland areas in the south-eastern Guinea—northern Liberia border region may represent a global hotspot for pipistrelloid bats and should receive increased conservation focus as a result.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.002 | 0.002 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.002 | 0.001 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".