White bat
| White bat | ||||||||||||
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White bat ( Ectophylla alba ) |
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| Systematics | ||||||||||||
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| Scientific name of the genus | ||||||||||||
| Ectophylla | ||||||||||||
| H. Allen , 1892 | ||||||||||||
| Scientific name of the species | ||||||||||||
| Ectophylla alba | ||||||||||||
| H. Allen, 1892 |
The white bat ( Ectophylla alba ) (also known as the yellow bored bat or Honduran pipistrelle ) is a bat species from the subfamily of fruit vampires (Stenodermatinae) within the family of leaf noses (Phyllostomidae).
description
As both the German name and the Latin epithet alba (white) already indicate, the bats are hairy white, a specialty that is otherwise only found in the American ghost bats . Ears, nose, face and parts of legs and wings, however, are yellow. Like other fruit vampires, they have a nasal blade . White bats are relatively small and reach a head-to-trunk length of 3.7 to 4.7 cm. The average weight is 7.5 grams.
Way of life
Like most bats, the white bats are nocturnal . To sleep, they look for leaves of heliconia ( Heliconia ), the side veins of which cut the animals along the midrib so that the leaf folds downwards like a tent on both sides. In this hiding place, protected from the eyes of predators , the bats spend the day individually or in groups of up to six individuals. At night they go in search of food that consists exclusively of fruits.
distribution and habitat
The distribution of the white bat ranges from Honduras in Central to Colombia in South America . It lives in rainforests , which have a population of heliconias.
swell
- ↑ Eric J. Ellis, 1999. Ectophylla alba , (On-line), Animal Diversity Web.
- ↑ Robert M. Timm, Jeanne Mortimer. Selection of Roost Sites by Honduran White Bats, Ectophylla Alba (Chiroptera: Phyllostomatidae) , Ecology, Vol. 57, No. 2: 385-389 (1976)
- ↑ Ectophylla alba in the IUCN Red List of Endangered Species
