Ptenochirus Peters, 1861

TYPE SPECIES: Ptenochirus jagori (Peters, 1861).

CONTENTS: Includes three species: Ptenochirus jagori (Peters, 1861), P. minor (Yoshiyuki, 1979), and P. wetmorei (Taylor, 1934). Ptenochirus as thus recognized does not include albicollis, currently treated as Megaerops albicollis but originally described as Megaerops wetmorei albicollis Francis, 1999 (see details above).

SYNONYMS: None; described by Peters as a subgenus of Pachysoma (= Cynopterus).

DIAGNOSIS: As in Andersen (1912), a cynopterine genus with upper incisors unequal (inner incisors considerably bulkier and longer than minute outer incisors), upper canine with deep anteromedial (i.e., mesial) groove (inconspicuous in P. wetmorei), single lower incisor representing i2 (see also Giannini and Simmons, 2007), tail always present (range across species 3–18 mm), head pelage significantly darker than body pelage, rusty brown ruff.

COMMENTS: Ptenochirus wetmorei was originally described in Megaerops chiefly because it lacks a tail, which is characteristic of Megaerops among cynopterine genera (see Taylor, 1934). Ptenochirus wetmorei indeed appears intermediate between typical Ptenochirus and Megaerops in some morphological aspects (very short tail, upper canine with barely noticeable or lacking groove), but a closer relationship of this form to Ptenochirus jagori (and P. minor) than to Megaerops species was found in the first comprehensive study of cynopterine relationships by Almeida et al. (2009), a finding replicated in this study.