@article{Ospina_De Luna_Herrera_Arroyo-Cabrales_Flores-Martínez_2018, title={Bite force, cranial morphometrics and size in the fishing bat Myotis vivesi (Chiroptera: Vespertilionidae)}, volume={66}, url={https://revistas.ucr.ac.cr/index.php/rbt/article/view/32904}, DOI={10.15517/rbt.v66i4.32904}, abstractNote={<p>Fish-eating in bats evolved independently in <em>Myotis</em> <em>vivesi</em> (Vespertillionidae) and <em>Noctilio leporinus</em> (Noctilionidae). We compared cranial morphological characters and bite force between these species to test the existence of evolutionary parallelism in piscivory. We collected cranial distances of <em>M. vivesi</em>, two related insectivorous bats (<em>M. velifer</em> and <em>M. keaysi), </em>two facultatively piscivorous bats (<em>M. daubentonii</em> and <em>M. capaccinii</em>), and <em>N. leporinus</em>. We analyzed morphometric data applying multivariate methods to test for differences among the six species. We also measured bite force in <em>M. vivesi</em> and evaluated if this value was well predicted by its cranial size. Both piscivorous species were morphologically different from the facultatively piscivorous and insectivorous species, and skull size had a significant contribution to this difference. However, we did not find morphological and functional similarities that could be interpreted as parallelisms between <em>M. vivesi</em> and <em>N. leporinus</em>. These two piscivorous species differed significantly in cranial measurements and in bite force. Bite force measured for <em>M. vivesi</em> was well predicted by skull size. Piscivory in <em>M. vivesi</em> might be associated to the existence of a vertically displaced temporal muscle and an increase in gape angle that allows a moderate bite force to process food.</p>}, number={4}, journal={Revista de Biología Tropical}, author={Ospina, Sandra M. and De Luna, Efraín and Herrera, Gerardo and Arroyo-Cabrales, Joaquín and Flores-Martínez, José Juan}, year={2018}, month={Dec.}, pages={1614–1628} }