A New Species of Stripe-faced Fruit Bat (chiroptera: Pteropodidae: Styloctenium) from the Philippines

For the past century, the genus Styloctenium Matschie has been known to contain a single species restricted to Sulawesi and the nearby Togian Islands. Styloctenium has a unique pelage, characterized by white supraocular spots and a white rostral stripe on an otherwise mostly orange pelage. Several additional features characterize the genus, including the loss of i1 and m3, rudimentary state of P1, and marked reduction of the molar cusps. The genus has often been considered closely allied to Pteropus, but no explicit, broadly supported, phylogenetic hypotheses have been proposed. Herein, I describe a new species of Styloctenium from Mindoro Island, Philippines, using a variety of dental, cranial, soft tissue, and external characters. The new species possesses all characters known to be diagnostic of Styloctenium, but also multicusped lower and upper canines. It is known only from the type locality in western Mindoro Island, is hunted (along with other large pteropodids), and may be at risk of extinction because of habitat loss, hunting, or both. The presence of a midsized, conspicuously colored, undescribed mammal on Mindoro emphasizes the need for further biodiversity inventories and specimen collection in the region, and on Mindoro in particular.