A PHYLOGENY OF INDO-WEST PACIFIC MEGACHIROPTERA BASED ON RIBOSOMAL DNA

There have been no major advances in understanding the evolution of th e Old World fruit bats (Megachiroptera: Pteropodidae) since the work o f Andersen (1912, Catalogue of the Chiroptera in the collection of the British Museum, 2nd edition, Volume 1, Megachiroptera, British Museum of Natural History, London), nor have there been any rigorous cladist ic analyses of megachiropteran interrelationships. Here we report a ph ylogenetic investigation of restriction endonuclease site variation in the ribosomal RNA cistrons of 25 species in 14 genera of Indo-West Pa cific Megachiroptera. Twenty-three of the 82 mapped sites were phyloge netically informative. Analyses of these informative sites suggest thr ee considerable modifications to the morphological understanding of me gadhiropteran relationships: (1) the most-parsimonious explanation of site-state distribution is that the Macroglossinae (as previously defi ned) is paraphyletic with respect to other groups; (2) the cynopterine and rousettine sections are not shown as monophyletic sister groups i n any of the most-parsimonious trees; and (3) Pteropus and Acerodon ar e not closely related to any other rousettine genera.