Journal of Veterinary Medical Science
Online ISSN : 1347-7439
Print ISSN : 0916-7250
ISSN-L : 0916-7250
Wildlife Science
Zoogeographical barriers causing discontinuous osteometrical variations in the northern treeshrew skulls
Hideki ENDOTruong Son NGUYENDinh Duy NGUYENMotoki SASAKIJunpei KIMURATatsuo OSHIDAMasaya YAGONgoc Tu LYThi Tham NGUYENMasaharu MOTOKAWA
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JOURNAL OPEN ACCESS
Supplementary material

2021 Volume 83 Issue 10 Pages 1534-1544

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Abstract

Morphological variation of the skull was examined in the northern treeshrew (Tupaia belangeri) from various localities across Southeast Asia. Through a multivariate analysis, the treeshrews from South Vietnam exhibited distinct morphological characteristics compared to other populations from Thailand and Laos, and Malaysia. The plots of the specimens of North Vietnam are not randomly mixed with Thailand plots segregation in the scatteregrams of canonical discriminant analysis. Since the skulls of the population from North Vietnam were morphologically similar to those form central Laos and northern and northeastern Thailand, the zoogeographical barrier effect of Mekong River was not clearly confirmed. The population of the Kanchanaburi in western Thailand is clearly smaller in size compared to the other populations. The southern border of the distribution of this species is determined by the Isthmus of Kra or Kangar-Pattani Line. In the northern treeshrew, which is distributed from southern China to Bangladesh and southern Thailand, we have detected osteometrical geographical variation driven by geography. These results indicate that the skull morphology in the Tupaia glis-belangeri complex distinctively differs in South Vietnam, western Thailand, and southern Thailand. The zoogeographical barrier and factor separating these districts are expected to clarify in the future.

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© 2021 by the Japanese Society of Veterinary Science

This article is licensed under a Creative Commons [Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International] license.
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