Bats (Chiroptera, Mammalia) from the Pleistocene deposits of the east chamber of the Denisova cave

The article provides the results of studying a new collection of bats bone remains from the Pleistocene layers of the Denisova Cave in the northwest of the Altai Mountains. More than 1,500 bat bones have been identified from the deposits of the cave ’s East Chamber. The presence of 10 species of bats from the Vespertilionidae family was established. Among them, Myotis blythii and Plecotus sp. were the most numerous. The bones of M. aff. dasycneme and Eptesicus sp. (cf. nilsonii) were next in descending order in terms of total abundance. For the first time, remains of E. cf. serotinus were found in the middle and lower parts of the Pleistocene deposits in the East Chamber. Representatives of this species do not currently inhabit the territory of Altai. Their remains most likely testify to favorable climatic conditions during the accumulation of enclosing sediments. In general, new materials on bats from the Denisova Cave significantly supplement the available data on the faunistic composition of the Pleistocene bat communities in Altai, and also indicate the dynamics in the composition of the bat population during the second half of the Middle and Upper Pleistocene. The results of analysis of the bat community from the East Chamber are in a good agreement with the picture of the development of the natural environment near the cave, obtained from the results of paleobotanical studies and data from the study of various groups of small terrestrial mammals. Moreover, new data on Pleistocene bats are important for understanding the patterns offauna development and individual bats taxa in Altai Mountains in the Late Quaternary.