Although there is a cline in size of Dobsonia inermis from Choiseul to Florida (generally southward; [Fig. 9]), no cline in size is apparent between Choiseul and Fauro (generally westward). Specimens of D. inermis from Fauro are average for the subspecies inermis; there is no evidence, in the small series available, of intergradation between minimus on Choiseul and inermis on Fauro.
Specimens examined (eight males and three females, all originally in alcohol; seven crania, all adults, extracted and cleaned).—Choiseul in March, 23565, 23628, 23637, 23665-67, 23640, 23714, 23716 (holotype), 23717, 23720. Ellis LeG. Troughton kindly examined and measured nos. AM-M. 3693 ♂, AM-M. 3694 ♂, AM-M. 3937 ♀, and AM-M. 3940 ♀, from Santa Ysabel in the Australian Museum.
Subfamily Macroglossinae
Macroglossus F. Cuvier
1824. Macroglossus F. Cuvier, Des dents des mammiferes ... zoologiques, p. 248.
1840. Kiodotus Blyth, in Cuvier's animal kingdom ..., p. 69.
1891. Carponycteris Lydekker, in Flower and Lydekker, mammals living and extinct, p. 654.
1902. Odontonycteris Jentink, Notes Leyden Mus., 23:140, July 15.
Macroglossus, the widest-ranging genus of macroglossine bats, occurs from southeastern Asia to the southern islands of the Solomon Archipelago (see Ellerman and Morrison-Scott, 1966:101; Laurie and Hill, 1954:44). One species, known also from Celebes and New Guinea, occurs in the Solomons and is represented there by an endemic subspecies.
Numerous generic names have been applied, at one time or another, to bats now considered as Macroglossus. Trouessart (1904:65) and Miller (1907:70) listed the one bat of this genus occurring in the Solomons under Carponycteris and Kiodotus, respectively. Andersen (1911:642; 1912:767) and, later, Sanborn (1931:22) identified this bat as Macroglossus lagochilus microtus. Troughton (1936:350), reporting an extension of range of this species in the Solomons, used the generic name Odontonycteris without explanation. Andersen (1912:754) pointed out that Jentink originally established the name Odontonycteris on the basis of an extra premolar in each upper jaw as opposed to the usual two in Macroglossus, and arranged Odontonycteris as a synonym of Macroglossus because "in no genus of Megachiroptera are dental anomalies of so frequent occurrence as in Macroglossus, and on no point of the jaws are these anomalies ... so often met with as on that occupied by the molar series." Sanborn (1931:22) and Phillips (1966:27) noted variation in number of incisors in Macroglossus as well as in Melonycteris, another macroglossine genus. All of the more recent workers (Ellerman and Morrison-Scott, 1966; Pohle, 1953; Laurie and Hill, 1954) use the name Macroglossus.