The southern big-eared brown bat (''Histiotus magellanicus'') 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 ...

from the family

Vespertilionidae Vespertilionidae is a family of microbats, of the order Chiroptera, flying, insect-eating mammals variously described as the common, vesper, or simple nosed bats. The vespertilionid family is the most diverse and widely distributed of bat familie ...

. Although current taxonomy treats the southern big-eared brown bat as a separate species, it is often treated as a subspecies of the small big-eared brown bat. It lives in the forests of southern

Argentina Argentina (), officially the Argentine Republic ( es, link=no, República Argentina), is a country in the southern half of South America. Argentina covers an area of , making it the second-largest country in South America after Brazil, th ...

and

Chile Chile, officially the Republic of Chile, is a country in the western part of South America. It is the southernmost country in the world, and the closest to Antarctica, occupying a long and narrow strip of land between the Andes to the east a ...

; though the population of the bat in the southern part of its habitat is low, there are no major concerns to justify anything lower than a

Least Concern A least-concern species is a species that has been categorized by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) as evaluated as not being a focus of species conservation because the specific species is still plentiful in the wild. T ...

rating in the

IUCN Red List The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species, also known as the IUCN Red List or Red Data Book, founded in 1964, is the world's most comprehensive inventory of the global conservation status of biol ...

Description

This is a small bat, with a total length of and a wingspan of about . Adults weigh from . The fur is soft and dark brown in colour across the whole of the body, allowing it to be distinguished from other members of the same genus which much paler, often whitish, underparts. The ears are large and moderately elongated with a well-developed tragus and are separated on the head, rather than being connected by a band of skin as in some closely related species. The skin of the ears and wing membranes is very dark brown.

Distribution and habitat

This is one of the most southerly bat species in the world, and is

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 ...

and western and southern

. In the north, it reaches as far as the southern part of the

Maule Region The Maule Region ( es, Región del Maule, ) is one of Chile's 16 first order administrative divisions. Its capital is Talca. The region derives its name from the Maule River which, running westward from the Andes, bisects the region and spans a ...

in Chile, from which it is found southwards across Chile and neighbouring parts of Argentina as far as the

Magellan Straits The Strait of Magellan (), also called the Straits of Magellan, is a navigable sea route in southern Chile separating mainland South America to the north and Tierra del Fuego to the south. The strait is considered the most important natural pass ...

. South of the mainland, it is found across the whole of

Tierra del Fuego Tierra del Fuego (, ; Spanish for "Land of the Fire", rarely also Fireland in English) is an archipelago off the southernmost tip of the South American mainland, across the Strait of Magellan. The archipelago consists of the main island, Isla G ...

, almost as far as

Cape Horn Cape Horn ( es, Cabo de Hornos, ) is the southernmost headland of the Tierra del Fuego archipelago of southern Chile, and is located on the small Hornos Island. Although not the most southerly point of South America (which are the Diego Ramírez ...

. It is found primarily in forests, especially those dominated by

southern beech ''Nothofagus'', also known as the southern beeches, is a genus of 43 species of trees and shrubs native to the Southern Hemisphere in southern South America (Chile, Argentina) and Australasia (east and southeast Australia, New Zealand, New Gui ...

trees, but has also been recorded from

Matorral 300px, Springtime in Chilean matorral a few kilometers north of Santiago along the Pan-American Highway Matorral is a Spanish language, Spanish word, along with ''tomillares'', for shrubland, thicket or bushes. It is used in naming and describin ...

shrubland and Andean

steppe In physical geography, a steppe () is an ecoregion characterized by grassland plains without trees apart from those near rivers and lakes. Steppe biomes may include: * the montane grasslands and shrublands biome * the temperate grasslands, ...

country.

Biology and behaviour

Bats in the genus ''Histiotus'' have the largest hearts, relative to body size, of any studied mammal. At 2.18% of total body mass, their hearts are about 63% larger than would be expected. The echolocation calls of the southern big-eared brown bat are medium broadband signals, lasting about 10 ms and sweeping down from 40 to 30 kHz. Breeding takes place in the summer, with lactating females having been recorded in November and December. Very little is known of the species' behaviour, but the bats are known to occasionally use natural cavities in standing dead trees or large living trees as roosting sites. This reliance on trees may mean that the recent introduction of beavers to Tierra del Fuego could post a future risk to the species. Histious magellanicus

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q1823243 Histiotus Mammals described in 1866 Bats of South America Taxa named by Rodolfo Amando Philippi