PROCEEDINGS OF THE BIOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON 117(3):27 1-302. 2004. The mammals of Palawan Island, Philippines Jacob A. Esselstyn, Peter Widmann, and Lawrence R. Heaney (JAE) Palawan Council for Sustainable Development, P.O. Box 45, Puerto Princesa City, Palawan, Philippines (present address: Natural History Museum, 1345 Jayhawk Blvd., Lawrence, KS 66045, U.S.A.) (PW) Katala Foundation, P.O. Box 390, Puerto Princesa City, Palawan, Philippines; (LRH) Field Museum of Natural History, 1400 S. Lake Shore Drive, Chicago, IL 60605 U.S.A. Abstract. — The mammal fauna of Palawan Island, Philippines is here doc-umented to include 58 native species plus four non-native species, with native species in the families Soricidae (2 species), Tupaiidae (1), Pteropodidae (6), Emballonuridae (2), Megadermatidae (1), Rhinolophidae (8), Vespertilionidae (15), Molossidae (2), Cercopithecidae (1), Manidae (1), Sciuridae (4), Muridae (6), Hystricidae (1), Felidae (1), Mustelidae (2), Herpestidae (1), Viverridae (3), and Suidae (1). Eight of these species, all microchiropteran bats, are here reported from Palawan Island for the first time (Rhinolophus arcuatus, R. ma-crotis, Miniopterus australis, M. schreibersi, and M. tristis), and three {Rhin-olophus cf. borneensis, R. creaghi, and Murina cf. tubinaris) are also the first reports from the Philippine Islands. One species previously reported from Pa-lawan {Hipposideros bicolor) is removed from the list of species based on re-identificaiton as H. ater, and one subspecies {Rhinolophus anderseni aequalis Allen 1922) is placed as a junior synonym of/?, acuminatus. Thirteen species (22% of the total, and 54% of the 24 native non-flying species) are endemic to the Palawan faunal region; 12 of these are non-flying species most closely related to species on the Sunda Shelf of Southeast Asia, and only one, the only bat among them {Acerodon leucotis), is most closely related to a species en-demic to the oceanic portion of the Philippines. Of the 28 insectivorous bats, 18 species are somewhat to highly widespread in Indo-Australia, 2 are shared only with the Sunda Shelf and Indochina, 1 with the Sunda Shelf alone, 3 occur on the Sunda Shelf and the oceanic Philippines, 1 occurs in Palawan, Sulawesi, and the oceanic Philippines, 2 occur only on Palawan and in the oceanic Philippines, and 1 occurs on Borneo, Sulawesi, and throughout the Philippines. Though the insectivorous bats tend to be widely distributed, these data, particularly the distributions of the non-volant species, strongly reinforce the perception of Palawan Island (and associated smaller islands) as a biogeo-graphic unit of the Sunda Shelf, with only limited similarity to other portions of the Philippine Islands. The Philippine archipelago is remarkable world (Heaney et al. 1998, Heaney & Re-fer the large number of indigenous land galado 1998, Mittermeier et al. 1997). mammal species (ca. 175), and especially These species, especially the endemics, are for the number of endemic species (ca. not distributed homogeneously over the 112). Given its relatively small land area, country; rather, there is a large number of the Philippines has perhaps the greatest discrete biogeographic units, and these cor-concentration of endemic mammals in the respond to the limits of the islands that ex-
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