Hill's roundleaf bat (''Hipposideros edwardshilli'') is a species of

bat Bats are mammals of the order Chiroptera.''cheir'', "hand" and πτερόν''pteron'', "wing". 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 bi ...

in the family

Hipposideridae The Hipposideridae are a family of bats commonly known as the Old World leaf-nosed bats. While it has often been seen as a subfamily, Hipposiderinae, of the family Rhinolophidae, it is now more generally classified as its own family.Simmons, 20 ...

endemic Endemism is the state of a species being found 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 found elsew ...

Papua New Guinea Papua New Guinea (abbreviated PNG; , ; tpi, Papua Niugini; ho, Papua Niu Gini), officially the Independent State of Papua New Guinea ( tpi, Independen Stet bilong Papua Niugini; ho, Independen Stet bilong Papua Niu Gini), is a country i ...

Taxonomy

Hill's roundleaf bat was described as a new species in 1993 by

Tim Flannery Timothy Fridtjof Flannery (born 28 January 1956) is an Australian mammalogist, palaeontologist, environmentalist, Conservation biology, conservationist, Exploration, explorer, author, Science communication, science communicator, activist and p ...

and Donald Colgan. The

holotype A holotype is a single physical example (or illustration) of an organism, known to have been used when the species (or lower-ranked taxon) was formally described. It is either the single such physical example (or illustration) or one of several ...

had been collected in the

Bewani Mountains The Bewani Mountains form a mountain range in northwestern Papua New Guinea. Together with the Torricelli Mountains and Prince Alexander Mountains it forms the North Coastal Range of Papua New Guinea.

near Imonda Station in 1990 by P. German and L. Seri. The

eponym An eponym is a person, a place, or a thing after whom or which someone or something is, or is believed to be, named. The adjectives which are derived from the word eponym include ''eponymous'' and ''eponymic''. Usage of the word The term ''epon ...

for the

species name In taxonomy, binomial nomenclature ("two-term naming system"), also called nomenclature ("two-name naming system") or binary nomenclature, is a formal system of naming species of living things by giving each a name composed of two parts, bot ...

"''edwardshilli''" was British mammalogist

John Edwards Hill John Edwards Hill (11 June 1928 – 6 May 1997) was a British mammalogist who described 24 species and 26 subspecies during his career. Early life and education Hill was born on 11 June 1928 in the small hamlet of Colemans Hatch in East Sussex, ...

, "in recognition of his outstanding contributions to bat taxonomy".

Description

Individuals have a forearm length of and a very short tail length of . It differs from all other ''Hipposideros'' species in its two club-like projections on its

nose-leaf A nose-leaf, or leaf nose, is an often large, lance-shaped nose, found in bats of the Phyllostomidae, Hipposideridae The Hipposideridae are a family of bats commonly known as the Old World leaf-nosed bats. While it has often been seen as a su ...

Range and habitat

Hill's roundleaf bat is

to Papua New Guinea in Oceania. It has been documented at a narrow range of elevations from above sea level.

Conservation

As of 2017, it is evaluated as a

vulnerable species A vulnerable species is a species which has been Conservation status, categorized by the International Union for Conservation of Nature as being threatened species, threatened with extinction unless the circumstances that are threatened species, ...

by the

IUCN The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN; officially International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources) is an international organization working in the field of nature conservation and sustainable use of natu ...

. It meets the criteria for this designation because it has a potentially limited habitat for roosting. Its area of occupancy is possibly less than . Habitat loss is ongoing through deforestation. It has not been documented since its description in 1993.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Hipposideros edwardshilli Hipposideros Bats of Oceania Endemic fauna of Papua New Guinea Mammals of Papua New Guinea Mammals described in 1993 Taxonomy articles created by Polbot Taxa named by Tim Flannery Bats of New Guinea