One of six newly discovered bat species in the Philippines has been found on Palawan Island, reaffirming the province’s role as a vital link between the country’s unique wildlife and that of mainland Southeast Asia.
The discovery was reported in a landmark study published in Zootaxa on September 8, 2025, titled “Systematics and Biogeography of Tube-nosed Bats, Murina, from the Philippines,” led by Judith L. Eger of the Royal Ontario Museum, with co-authors Jodi L. Sedlock, Burton K. Lim, and Lawrence R. Heaney of the Field Museum of Natural History.
According to the researchers, six new species of tube-nosed bats under the genus Murina were identified from specimens collected across the archipelago. One of them, Murina suilla, a species previously known only from Indonesia, Malaysia, and Thailand, occurs in the Philippines exclusively on Mindoro and Palawan Islands.
This finding highlights Palawan’s strong faunal connection to Borneo, which scientists believe may have been linked by land bridges during the Pleistocene era.
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During this period, Palawan may have been connected to Borneo by land, allowing animals like Murina suilla to migrate and evolve. When sea levels rose and the islands became isolated once more, these populations adapted independently, giving rise to the unique assemblage of wildlife now found only in Palawan and nearby islands.
Palawan, often described as the “missing link” between the Philippines and Borneo, serves as a living bridge between two distinct biogeographic regions. Its flora and fauna contain elements of both regions, making it a key to understanding how species dispersed and evolved across island Southeast Asia.
“This finding strengthens the view that Palawan’s fauna has deep biogeographic ties to Borneo,” the study noted.
The other newly described species, Murina alvarezi, Murina baletei, Murina hilonghilong, Murina luzonensis, Murina mindorensis, and Murina philippinensis are mostly island endemic.
Each was named after Filipino scientists or the islands where they were found, reflecting the long-term collaboration between local and international biologists in documenting the Philippines’ rich mammalian diversity.
Tube-nosed bats belong to the genus Murina, named for their distinctive tubular nostrils that help them echolocate while hunting small insects. They live in dense forest understories, roosting in foliage, and are considered indicators of healthy forest ecosystems.
Researchers said the diversification of these small insect-eating bats began around 11 million years ago, reflecting the evolutionary isolation and speciation that occurred across the Philippine archipelago.
“This study provides the first phylogeographic analysis of a laryngeal echolocating bat genus within the Philippines and shows that many of our endemic bat lineages evolved in the same biogeographic regions that existed as connected islands during the last ice age,” the paper stated.
Specimens used in the study are housed at the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago, with the holotypes of the new species to be turned over to the National Museum of the Philippines before the end of 2025.
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