Butterfly bats
| Butterfly bats | ||||||||||||
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Glauconycteris cf. poensis |
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| Systematics | ||||||||||||
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| Scientific name | ||||||||||||
| Glauconycteris | ||||||||||||
| Dobson , 1875 |
The butterfly bats ( Glauconycteris ) are a species of bat from the smooth-nosed family (Vespertilionidae). The genus includes eleven species that are common in sub- Saharan Africa.
features
Butterfly bats are relatively small and reach a total length (snout tip to tail end) of 7.7 to 11.5 cm and a wingspan of 25.5 to 33 cm. Their back fur is usually two- or three-colored and five types are patterned with spots, stripes or other markings. Colors that can appear are light and dark brown, sepia, umber , golden brown, red brown, gray and black. The wings can be patterned or unpatterned, and light or dark.
| 2 | · | 1 | · | 1 | · | 3 | = 32 |
| 3 | · | 1 | · | 2 | · | 3 |
Diagnostic features of the genus are short ears that have not grown together at the base and whose front edges extend to the mouth, a non-flattened skull and a flap of skin in the corner of the mouth, as well as two incisors and four molars in the upper jaw and five molars in the lower jaw.
Systematics
Glauconycteris was introduced in 1875 by the Irish zoologist George Edward Dobson as a subgenus of Chalinolobus and raised to the genus rank by Winton in 1901. Both genera are quite similar and differ mainly in the penis bone of the males, which is small and more or less triangular in Glauconycteris , but long in Chalinolobus . Glauconycteris occurs only in Africa, Chalinolobus in New Guinea, Australia, New Zealand and New Caledonia. Because of the widely spaced distribution areas of the two genera, it is assumed that common features emerged convergent .
species
- Striped butterfly bat ( Glauconycteris alboguttata )
- Silver butterfly bat ( Glauconycteris argentata )
- Little butterfly bat ( Glauconycteris beatrix )
- Curry's butterfly bat ( Glauconycteris curryae )
- Bibundi butterfly bat ( Glauconycteris egeria )
- Glen's butterfly bat ( Glauconycteris gleni )
- Spotted butterfly bat ( Glauconycteris humeralis )
- Kenya butterfly bat ( Glauconycteris kenyacola )
- Machado's butterfly bat ( Glauconycteris machadoi )
- Subscription butterfly bat ( Glauconycteris poensis )
- Reticulated butterfly bat ( Glauconycteris variegata )
A twelfth species, the particularly striking black-and-white butterfly bat ( G. superba ), was transferred from the genus Glauconycteris to the newly introduced monotypical genus Niumbaha in 2013 . This is the sister genus of Glauconycteris .
Six species of butterfly bat occur exclusively or mainly in rainforests , one in Kenya in the coastal forest on the Indian Ocean , another in rainforests and forest savannas and two only in forest savannas.
literature
- Meredith Happold: Genus Glauconycteris Butterfly Bats, page 560-571 in Meredith Happold and David Happold (eds.): Mammals of Africa Volume IV. Hedgehogs, Shrews and Bats . Bloomsbury, London, 2013, ISBN 978-1-4081-2254-9
Individual evidence
- ^ Reeder, D .; Helgen, KM; Vodzak, M .; Lunde, D .; Ejotre, I. (2013). A new genus for a rare African vespertilionid bat: Insights from South Sudan . ZooKeys 285: 89.doi : 10.3897 / zookeys.285.4892 .
