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During excavations in Koridornaya Cave (Pompeevskiy Ridge, Jewish Autonomous Oblast, Russia) in 2017–2018, for the first time in Priamurye (Outer Manchuria), numerous bone remains of Late Quaternary mammals were recovered. The purpose of this work was to determine the species list of shrews of that time and to estimate their abundance. In the deposits of Koridornaya Cave, 890 cranial remains of shrews (Soricidae) were found belonging to 11 species from four genera: Sorex, Neomys, Beremendia, and Crocidura. The formation time of the deposits corresponds to the Karginsky interstadial (MIS 3), and the upper part of the deposits contains Holocene (MIS 1) material. Pleistocene communities of shrews of the Pompeevskiy Ridge included modern inhabitants of this territory (S. caecutiens, S. isodon, S. unguiculatus, S. daphaenodon, S. roboratus, S. minutissimus, N. fodiens, and C. lasiura) and S. tundrensis; C. ex gr. suaveolens appeared in the Holocene. Sorex gracillimus, which currently lives here, either was absent in Late Pleistocene communities or was extremely rare. The dominant species in the communities of that time was S. caecutiens, just as in the Southern Sikhote-Alin (Late Pleistocene to Holocene) and in most of modern communities of shrews in the south of the Russian Far East.

White-nose syndrome (WNS) is a fungal disease caused by

A new genus, Tonomochota n. gen., and three new species, T. khasanensis n. sp., T. sikhotana n. sp., and T. major n. sp. of Ochotonidae are described from late Pleistocene cave deposits in the Russian Far East. The description of the new genus was based on thirty-two isolated lower third premolar from the sediments in the Sukhaya and Tetyukhinskaya caves. The new genus was primarily established based on the following characteristics: the triangular anteroconid of the lower third premolar always has a labial fold filled with cement; lingual fold of the anteroconid of the lower third premolar with or without cement; the re-entrant fold(s) on the anteroconid is directed laterally. All of the three new species differ significantly from each other in the size of the lower third premolar.

The contrast between the tiger’s (Panthera tigris) 2-3 My age and extant tigers’ coalescence approximately 110,000 years ago suggests an ancient demographic bottleneck. Here we collected over 60 extinct specimens across mainland Asia and generated whole genome sequences from a 10,600-year-old Russian Far East (RFE) specimen (RUSA21, 8ξ coverage), 14 South China tigers (0.1-12ξ), three Caspian tigers (4-8ξ), plus 17 new mitogenomes. RUSA21 clustered within modern Northeast Asian phylogroups and partially derived from an extinct Late Pleistocene lineage. While some 8,000-10,000-year-old RFE mitogenomes are basal to all tigers, one 2,000-year-old specimen resembles present Amur tigers. The Caspian tiger likely dispersed from an ancestral Northeast Asian population and experienced gene flow from southern Bengal tigers. Lastly, genome-wide monophyly supported the South China tiger as a distinct subspecies, albeit with mitochondrial paraphyly, hence resolving its longstanding taxonomic controversy. The distribution of mitochondrial haplogroups corroborated by biogeographical modeling suggested Southwest China was a Late Pleistocene refugium for a relic basal lineage. As suitable habitat returned, Eastern China became a genetic melting pot to foster divergent lineages to merge into South China tigers and other subsequent northern subspecies to develop. Genomic information retrieved from ancient tigers hence sheds light on the species’ full evolutionary history leading to nine modern subspecies and resolves the natural history of surviving tigers.

Background Palearctic bats host a diversity of lyssaviruses, though not the classical rabies virus (RABV). As surveillance for bat rabies over the Palearctic area covering Central and Eastern Europe and Siberian regions of Russia has been irregular, we lack data on geographic and seasonal patterns of the infection. Results To address this, we undertook serological testing, using non-lethally sampled blood, on 1027 bats of 25 species in Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Poland, Russia and Slovenia between 2014 and 2018. The indirect enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) detected rabies virus anti-glycoprotein antibodies in 33 bats, giving an overall seroprevalence of 3.2%. Bat species exceeding the seroconversion threshold included Myotis blythii, Myotis gracilis, Myotis petax, Myotis myotis, Murina hilgendorfi, Rhinolophus ferrumequinum and Vespertilio murinus. While Myotis species (84.8%) and adult females (48.5%) dominated in seropositive bats, juveniles of both sexes showed no difference in seroprevalence. Higher numbers tested positive when sampled during the active season (10.5%), as compared with the hibernation period (0.9%). Bat rabies seroprevalence was significantly higher in natural habitats (4.0%) compared with synanthropic roosts (1.2%). Importantly, in 2018, we recorded 73.1% seroprevalence in a cave containing a M. blythii maternity colony in the Altai Krai of Russia. Conclusions Identification of such “hotspots” of non-RABV lyssavirus circulation not only provides important information for public health protection, it can also guide research activities aimed at more in-depth bat rabies studies.

The current paper first time describes a small Beremendia from the late Pleistocene deposits in the Koridornaya Cave locality (Russian Far East), which associated with the extinct Beremendia minor....

Late Pleistocene-Holocene faunal complexes of small mammals (Lipotyphla, Rodentia, and Lagomorpha) from the Russian Far East are described for the first time. We used material from the Medvezhyi Klyk Cave, located in Southern Sikhote-Alin. The numerous fossil findings from the cave display a remarkable taxonomic diversity and high degree of preservation. AMS 14C dating used for determination of deposits age. The Holocene sediments were divided into three periods: Early, Middle, and Late. The Pleistocene deposits age was not exactly determined, but under approximately estimation it can reach 50–60 ka. Thirty-nine species were found, including one member of the extinct genus of arvicolins. There are six faunal complexes identified from the studied Late Pleistocene and Holocene deposits. In general, the faunal complexes characterized by the dominance of Craseomys rufocanus within rodents, Sorex caecutiens within lipotyphlans; and relatively stability composition of most number of the dominant, codominant and subdominant species. Accordingly, the faunal complexes were described by means of two determining criteria only: relative number of species; and presence or absence of certain species. The dominant species are eurytopic and so they cannot use for reconstruction of the paleoenvironment.

The current paper describes material from Medvezhyi Klyk Cave Late Pleistocene–Holocene deposits that represented mostly by isolated teeth. The morphology and size variation of the first lower teeth (n = 542) were studied. There are Alexandromysfortis, A. cf. maximowiczii, A. cf. oeconomus, A. cf. mongolicus determined in the material. We could not determine the taxa due to uncertainty in a spatial variation of the species ranges during Late Pleistocene and Holocene, a broad variety of the m1 anteroconid shape among medium-sized species of voles, and supposed presence “archaic” and “deviant” morphotypes of m1. Geometric morphometrics methods were shown the broad variety of the m1 anteroconid shape without strict species-relation, i.e., each tooth shows proper anteroconid shape, which can repeat within limits in populations in and among species.

The Bering Land Bridge (BLB) last connected Eurasia and North America during the Late Pleistocene. Although the BLB would have enabled transfers of terrestrial biota in both directions, it also acted as an ecological filter whose permeability varied considerably over time. Here we explore the possible impacts of this ecological corridor on genetic diversity within, and connectivity among, populations of a once wide-ranging group, the caballine horses (Equus spp.). Using a panel of 187 mitochondrial and eight nuclear genomes recovered from present-day and extinct caballine horses sampled across the Holarctic, we found that Eurasian horse populations initially diverged from those in North America, their ancestral continent, around 1.0–0.8 million years ago. Subsequent to this split our mitochondrial DNA analysis identified two bidirectional long-range dispersals across the BLB ~875–625 and ~200–50 thousand years ago, during the Middle and Late Pleistocene. Whole genome analysis indicated low levels of gene flow between North American and Eurasian horse populations, which probably occurred as a result of these inferred dispersals. Nonetheless, mitochondrial and nuclear diversity of caballine horse populations retained strong phylogeographical structuring. Our results suggest that barriers to gene flow, currently unidentified but possibly related to habitat distribution across Beringia or ongoing evolutionary divergence, played an important role in shaping the early genetic history of caballine horses, including the ancestors of living horses within Equus ferus. © 2021 John Wiley & Sons Ltd 19-05-00477, AAAA-A19-119032590102-7; National Science Foundation, NSF: ARC-1417036; Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, GBMF: 3804; University of California, Santa Cruz, UCSC; U.S. Bureau of Land Management, BLM; Horizon 2020 Framework Programme, H2020: 681605; Seventh Framework Programme, FP7: IEF-302617; Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, NSERC; Marie Curie; European Research Council, ERC; Svenska Forskningsrådet Formas: 2018-01640; Russian Foundation for Basic Research, РФФИ: 18-04-00327; Knut och Alice Wallenbergs Stiftelse; Vetenskapsrådet, VR; Science for Life Laboratory, SciLifeLab We are grateful to the placer gold mining community, the Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in First Nation, and the Vuntut Gwitchin First Nation for their collaboration and support with our research in Yukon. Tamara Pico, Sarah Crump and Paul Koch provided advice interpreting the palaeoclimate of Beringia. Data generation was supported with funds from NSF ARC-1417036, the Gordon & Betty Moore Foundation (no. 3804) and the American Wild Horse Campaign. A.O.V. was additionally supported by a UCSC Chancellor’s Dissertation Year Fellowship and the CANA Foundation. M.T. and D.G. were supported by the Russian Foundation for Basic Research (project 18-04-00327), and L.E. by a Marie-Curie Intra-European fellowship (FP7, IEF-302617). G.B. is supported by the Federal theme of Zoological Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences no. AAAA-A19-119032590102-7. S.V. was funded by the Russian Foundation for Basic Research, Grant 19-05-00477. L.D. acknowledges support from FORMAS (project 2018-01640). D.F. was supported by the Natural Science and Engineering Research Council. P.G. and D.M. are supported by the Bureau of Land Management. We acknowledge support from Science for Life Laboratory, the Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation, the National Genomics Infrastructure funded by the Swedish Research Council, and Uppsala Multidisciplinary Center for Advanced Computational Science for assistance with massively parallel sequencing and access to the UPPMAX computational infrastructure. L.O. received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (grant agreement 681605). We are grateful to the placer gold mining community, the Tr?ond?k Hw?ch?in First Nation, and the Vuntut Gwitchin First Nation for their collaboration and support with our research in Yukon. Tamara Pico, Sarah Crump and Paul Koch provided advice interpreting the palaeoclimate of Beringia. Data generation was supported with funds from NSF ARC-1417036, the Gordon & Betty Moore Foundation (no. 3804) and the American Wild Horse Campaign. A.O.V. was additionally supported by a UCSC Chancellor?s Dissertation Year Fellowship and the CANA Foundation. M.T. and D.G. were supported by the Russian Foundation for Basic Research (project 18-04-00327), and L.E. by a Marie-Curie Intra-European fellowship (FP7, IEF-302617). G.B. is supported by the Federal theme of Zoological Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences no. AAAA-A19-119032590102-7. S.V. was funded by the Russian Foundation for Basic Research, Grant 19-05-00477. L.D. acknowledges support from FORMAS (project 2018-01640). D.F. was supported by the Natural Science and Engineering Research Council. P.G. and D.M. are supported by the Bureau of Land Management. We acknowledge support from Science for Life Laboratory, the Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation, the National Genomics Infrastructure funded by the Swedish Research Council, and Uppsala Multidisciplinary Center for Advanced Computational Science for assistance with massively parallel sequencing and access to the UPPMAX computational infrastructure. L.O. received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union?s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (grant agreement 681605).

For the first time in the south of the Russian Far East in the Late Pleistocene cave deposits, fragments of the giant flying squirrel of the genus Petaurista were discovered. Petaurista tetyukhensis n. sp. is described based on a fragment of the upper jaw with two teeth and five isolated teeth from two cave locations. The main differences between the new species and living forms as well as other fossil species of the genus Petaurista are the absence of vertical groove on the lingual wall between the protocone and hypocone on M2, the absence of the anterior cross loph on the upper P4-M3, and the absence of mesoconids on lower, as a result of which the hypoflexid is not w-shaped. It is suggested that the Sikhote-Alin refugium allowed individual species to survive there during long unfavourable period of time and was the centre of speciation. © 2020 Russian Foundation for Basic Research, RFBR: 18–04–00327 National Science Foundation, NSF: 1417036 This study was supported by the Russian Foundation for Basic Research (project 18–04–00327). Funding for radiocarbon dating of horse samples is provided by the NSF award № 1417036 to Dr. Beth Shapiro. We are thankful to Dr. Shapiro, Alisa Vershinina (UC Santa Cruz Paleogenomics Laboratory), John Southon and Chanda Bertrand (UC Irvine Keck CCAMS facility) for assistance with radiocarbon dating of these samples. We thank Prof. Hao-Wen Tong and an anonymous reviewer who offered constructive comments and helped to improve the manuscript considerably.

White-nose syndrome (WNS) is a fungal disease caused by Pseudogymnoascus destructans that is devastating to Nearctic bat populations but tolerated by Palearctic bats. Temperature is a factor known to be important for fungal growth and bat choice of hibernation. Here we investigated the effect of temperature on the pathogenic fungal growth in the wild across the Palearctic. We modelled body surface temperature of bats with respect to fungal infection intensity and disease severity and were able to relate this to the mean annual surface temperature at the site. Bats that hibernated at lower temperatures had less fungal growth and fewer skin lesions on their wings. Contrary to expectation derived from laboratory P. destructans culture experiments, natural infection intensity peaked between 5 and 6°C and decreased at warmer hibernating temperature. We made predictive maps based on bat species distributions, temperature and infection intensity and disease severity data to determine not only where P. destructans will be found but also where the infection will be invasive to bats across the Palearctic. Together these data highlight the mechanistic model of the interplay between environmental and biological factors, which determine progression in a wildlife disease.

The sibling vole, Microtus rossiaemeridionalis, is a North Eurasian rodent that undergoes range expansion via casual introductions by humans. The documented cases of human-mediated spread of M. rossiaemeridionalis provide an opportunity to explore phenotypic consequences associated with the invasion events. We present an analysis of dental variability in two recently discovered invasive populations of M. rossiaemeridionalis in northern Asia (Surgut and Khabarovsk) and summarize the data on conspecifics within and outside the core range in order to uncover common and specific patterns of dental variation in the disjunctive invasive populations, and to consider the potential evolutionary significance of the phenotypic effects from neontological and paleontological standpoints. The analysis of morphotype dental patterns and inspection for rare traits suggest that the existence of invasive populations under conditions of isolation leads to a release of hidden phenotypic variation, which could be inferred from sharp increases in frequencies of reserve morphotypes and/or rare dental traits, and also from the presence of abnormalities. An atavistic anomaly of the third upper molars revealed in one individual in a fragmented habitat in Surgut recapitulates some features of the prismatic arrangement and occlusal pattern of extinct Mimomys-like arvicolines. All variants of released phenotypic variation in the invasive populations of M. rossiaemeridionalis under conditions of isolation could be interpreted as de-specialization of dentition. Such de-specialization appears to be maladaptive for a herbivore, though it might favor a transition to a more generalized diet and enhance the success during the transport, colonization, and establishment stages of the invasion.

Until recently, almost all barbastelle populations inhabiting Asia, from Iran to Japan and Taiwan, were recognized as a single species, Barbastella darjelingensis. However, in recent years, it was shown that the taxonomic diversity within the genus Barbastella was underestimated, and B. darjelingensis sensu lato is highly variable, both morphologically and genetically. Transcaucasian and Central Asian populations were already raised to the species level as B. caspica. Populations from eastern and south-eastern Asia are still understudied and likely encompass undescribed species. Comparing results from mtDNA sequences, skull morphometry and baculum shape, we concluded that one of these putative species is represented by populations inhabiting Honshu, Hokkaido and Kunashir Islands, and provide a scientific description of this new species. Populations from Taiwan, southern China and Indochina represent a sister mitochondrial clade to this new species. However, available morphological material from these areas did not demonstrate a significant difference from the Himalayan B. darjelingensis. Therefore, we refuse to give this form any taxonomic status until further studies of more vast material are done.

The aim of the study was to identify changes in the fauna of bats during the late Pleistocene and Holocene in Southeast Russia, to utilize the results together with environmental data to disseminate modern analogues and reconstruct fossil environment. Fossil and subfossil lower jawbones of bats found in Medvezhyi Klyk cave deposits were identified by comparing morphology and surface features to modern species. The ecology and distribution of modern analogues are extrapolated to reconstruct the fossil environment. Fifteen bat species belonging to 6 genera were identified. Of the bat bone residues detected, the greatest number and the richest species composition formed approximately 40 ka BP in the lower layers of the cave sediments. In the layers formed in the Last Glacial Maximum period, the remains of only two species were found. The species diversity of bat bone residues gradually increased, reaching a maximum (7 species) in the layers corresponding to the optimum of the Holocene. At present, only single individuals of Murina hilgendorfi and Plecotus ognevi can occasionally be found hibernating in caves. Fossil remains of forest species are present in all layers of sediments, but occasionally, the remains of species of open landscapes not currently living in the territory appear as well. Studies have shown that during the warmer periods of the late Pleistocene and Holocene the species composition of bats in southern Primorye was expanded by southern thermophilic species that moved much farther north than previously thought. The presence of fauna of that time, including forest species that hunted mainly in open spaces, is indicative of the spread of savannah-like landscapes typical of the outskirts of the mammoth steppe. Changes in the species composition of bats occurring during the late Pleistocene and Holocene in southern Primorye adequately reflect the climate and landscape changes.

Background Spatiotemporal distribution patterns are important infectious disease epidemiological characteristics that improve our understanding of wild animal population health. The skin infection caused by the fungus Pseudogymnoascus destructans emerged as a panzootic disease in bats of the northern hemisphere. However, the infection status of bats over an extensive geographic area of the Russian Federation has remained understudied. Results We examined bats at the geographic limits of bat hibernation in the Palearctic temperate zone and found bats with white-nose syndrome (WNS) on the European slopes of the Ural Mountains through the Western Siberian Plain, Central Siberia and on to the Far East. We identified the diagnostic symptoms of WNS based on histopathology in the Northern Ural region at 11° (about 1200 km) higher latitude than the current northern limit in the Nearctic. While body surface temperature differed between regions, bats at all study sites hibernated in very cold conditions averaging 3.6 °C. Each region also differed in P. destructans fungal load and the number of UV fluorescent skin lesions indicating skin damage intensity. Myotis bombinus, M. gracilis and Murina hilgendorfi were newly confirmed with histopathological symptoms of WNS. Prevalence of UV-documented WNS ranged between 16 and 76% in species of relevant sample size. Conclusions To conclude, the bat pathogen P. destructans is widely present in Russian hibernacula but infection remains at low intensity, despite the high exposure rate. Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (10.1186/s12917-018-1521-1) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Far-Eastern grey voles of the genus Alexandromys are a group of 12 species distributed exclusively in the Eastern Palearctic. Morphologically they are hard to be distinguished due to interspecific overlapping of several characters. In recent material of Alexandromys morphometric analyses of teeth (in particular the first lower molar) proved to be a good tool for species identification, although there are overlaps in several measurements. In subfossil and fossil material, preliminary analyses indicated considerable variation in tooth morphology and, in comparison to extant species, the presence of additional morphologically ambiguous forms. In the present study we tested in subfossil and fossil teeth of the genus Alexandromys from Russian Far East whether taxonomic classification based on morphology is in concordance with species determination based on DNA analysis. We also asked whether the morphologically ambiguous forms could be assigned to described species by means of DNA sequence analysis. The material originated from Medvezhyi Klyk Cave Deposits (Primorskyi Krai, Russia) and had an age of 2000–40,000 years. The results showed that the success rate in PCR amplification was ∼50% and it was possible to obtain PCR products of >400 bp. The concordance between taxonomic assignment based on morphology and genetics was high. Out of 17 samples that were successful in the sequence analysis, only one yielded a classification that contradicts morphology and one specimen could not be classified since the delivered sequence most probably is a numt (nuclear copy of mitochondrial origin). Although only one of the four unidentified teeth in our sample was successful in the DNA analysis and allowed taxonomic assignment, our results suggest that genetic species determination could be a valuable tool to classify subfossil and fossil teeth in Arvicolinae.

Recent extensive bat surveys between 2010 and 2013 in Kunashir Island and the middle part of Iturup Island have brought about new important contributions on the bat fauna in islands. In Kunashir Island, we found 7 of the 8 species (Barbastella leucomelas, Plecotus sacrimontis. Myotis gracilis, My.ikonnikovi, My macrodactylus , My.petax and Murina ussuriensis), which were previously reported, and 2 additional species ( Eptesicus nilssonii and Myotis nattereri),which has been reported, In the middle part of Iturup Island, we found all of the 4 species( Eptesicus nilssonii,Plecotus sacrimontis, Myotis gracilis and My. petax ),which were previously reported. Our surbeys show that Kunashir Island habbors at least 6 bat species more than Iturup Island.

An M1 tooth of Asian black bear (Ursus (Euarctos) thibetanus G. Cuvier, 1823) was found in deposits of the Tetyukhinskaya cave (Middle Sikhote-Alin, 44°35'N, 135°36'E). This finding is the first reliable evidence of Asian black bear's presence in Pleistocene of Primorye. Its morphological and morphometric descriptions are given. The period of inhabitation of U. (E.) thibetanus determined based on the radiocarbon date obtained during the study of the tooth, is 39 874 ± 133 BP (NSK-850, UGAMS-21786), which corresponds to the middle of Marine Isotope Stage 3 (MIS 3) of Late Pleistocene. The composition of ancient theriofauna indicates the existence of wide variety of landscapes in Primorye in the middle of Late Pleistocene. A refugium of forest fauna, in which species of taiga, nemoral, and Central Asian mountain-forest theriocomplexes were present, was located in southern Primorye in Late Pleistocene.

Here, we present the morphotypic variety of the m1 and M3 teeth diagnostics for the recently formed isolated population of the sibling vole in Far Eastern Russia. In the Far Eastern population, the prevalence of the individuals with m1 with a complicated crown of the forward unpaired loop of the paraconid is characteristic. Namely, m1 in these individuals shows well-expressed sixth exterior and fifth interior salient angles. The structure of the M3 morphotypes is also unique in the sibling voles in Far Eastern Russia. The dominant morphotypes were typica (47 %) and simplex (45 %), whereas the abundance of the duplicata morphotype was 0.08 %. The frequencies of various m1 and M3 morphotypes found in casually introduced sibling voles in the Far East are not typical of any previously studied Microtus rossiaemeridionalis population.

In this study, we report the first case of observation of the East European vole Microtus rossiaemeridionalis Ognev, 1924 in the south of the Russian Far East, Khabarovsk krai, in urbanized biotopes in the vicinity of the city of Sovetskaya Gavan and two adjacent rural settlements. The species was identified by karyological characteristics—2n = 54, NF = 56, C-banding—and morphological characteristics—body, cranium, baculum, and spermatozoa.

A small Myotis species belonging to the Myotis siligorensis group was found in four caves in Yunnan province, South China. Twenty specimens of this bat were compared with other East Asian Myotis species. Statistical and physical analysis of this sample demonstrates that, despite their similarity to M. siligorensis, the Yunnan specimens have characteristics of baculum morphology and cranial proportions suggesting that they represent a distinct species.

Vampirolepis muraiae n. sp. (Cestoda: Cyclophyllidea: Hymenolepididae) is described on the basis of a single specimen from a mouse-eared bat, Myotis sp., from Yunnan Province, China. It is distinguished from its congeners on the basis of the size and shape of the rostellar hooks, which have a blade shorter than the guard, the tubular structure of the initial stage of the developing uterus and eggs with a thick outer coat.