Palaeontology

Giant extinct bat unearthed in New Zealand

By T.K. Randall
January 11, 2018 ·  4 comments

Southern short-tailed bats also hunt on the forest floor. Image Credit: CC BY-SA 4.0 Jake Osborne Discovered by an international team of researchers led by the University of New South Wales, the fossilized remains of this prehistoric winged mammal date back up to 19 million years.

Scientists have named the new species Vulcanops jennyworthyae - a reference to Vulcan, the Roman god of fire and volcanoes, as well as to Jenny Worthy, the team member who discovered the fossils.

Burrowing bats are unusual because, unlike most bats, they prefer to scurry around on all-fours and forage for food under leaf litter and along tree branches."Burrowing bats are more closely related to bats living in South America than to others in the southwest Pacific," said study author Professor Sue Hand.

"They are related to vampire bats, ghost-faced bats, fishing and frog-eating bats, and nectar-feeding bats, and belong to a bat superfamily that once spanned the southern landmasses of Australia, New Zealand, South America and possibly Antarctica."

Bones from a prehistoric burrowing bat, three times the size of those currently living in New Zealand, has been found in Otago https://t.co/0QsmkWK3II pic.twitter.com/Yf7nRvcRrW

— nzherald (@nzherald) January 11, 2018

Source: Phys.org | Comments (4)

Tags: Bat, New Zealand