Grandidier's free-tailed bat (''Mops leucogaster'') is a species of

bat Bats are flying mammals of the order Chiroptera (). With their forelimbs adapted as wings, they are the only mammals capable of true and sustained flight. Bats are more agile in flight than most birds, flying with their very long spread-out ...

in the family Molossidae. It is

endemic Endemism is the state of a species being found only in a single defined geographic location, such as an island, state, nation, country or other defined zone; organisms that are indigenous to a place are not endemic to it if they are also foun ...

Madagascar Madagascar, officially the Republic of Madagascar, is an island country that includes the island of Madagascar and numerous smaller peripheral islands. Lying off the southeastern coast of Africa, it is the world's List of islands by area, f ...

. Its natural habitats are subtropical or tropical dry forests and dry

savanna A savanna or savannah is a mixed woodland-grassland (i.e. grassy woodland) biome and ecosystem characterised by the trees being sufficiently widely spaced so that the canopy does not close. The open canopy allows sufficient light to reach th ...

. It has at times been considered

synonymous A synonym is a word, morpheme, or phrase that means precisely or nearly the same as another word, morpheme, or phrase in a given language. For example, in the English language, the words ''begin'', ''start'', ''commence'', and ''initiate'' are a ...

with the little free-tailed bat.

Classical ring species hypothesis

A ring species occurs when two populations that are connected by a geographic ring of populations that can interbreed but do not interbreed despite living in the same region. Upon migrating to the Comoros, Grandidier's free-tailed bat and ''C. pusillius'' became sympatric. There is evidence of isolation between the two populations further restricting gene flow.

References

Mops (bat) Bats of Africa Endemic fauna of Madagascar Mammals of Madagascar Mammals described in 1869 Taxonomy articles created by Polbot Taxa named by Alfred Grandidier {{Molossidae-stub