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Mystacinidae is a family of unusual
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 ...
s, the New Zealand short-tailed bats. There is one living
genus
Genus ( plural genera ) is a taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms as well as viruses. In the hierarchy of biological classification, genus comes above species and below family. In binomial nom ...
, ''
Mystacina'', with two species, one of which could have possibly become extinct in the 1960s. They are medium-sized bats, about in length, with grey, velvety fur.
Species and range
The origins of this family go back to the
Late Oligocene
The Chattian is, in the geologic timescale, the younger of two ages or upper of two stages of the Oligocene Epoch/ Series. It spans the time between . The Chattian is preceded by the Rupelian and is followed by the Aquitanian (the lowest stage ...
of
Australia, with the genus ''
Icarops''. Several fossil species are also known from the contemporary
Saint Bathans Fauna
The St Bathans fauna is found in the lower Bannockburn Formation of the Manuherikia Group of Central Otago, in the South Island of New Zealand. It comprises a suite of fossilised prehistoric animals from the late Early Miocene (Altonian) period, ...
in New Zealand. The oldest unambiguous fossils of the living genus date to the
Miocene
The Miocene ( ) is the first epoch (geology), geological epoch of the Neogene Period and extends from about (Ma). The Miocene was named by Scottish geologist Charles Lyell; the name comes from the Greek words (', "less") and (', "new") and mea ...
of New Zealand. A second extinct genus, ''
Vulcanops'', lived sympatrically with ''Mystacina'' in New Zealand from the Miocene until its extinction during the Pleistocene. The study describing ''Vulcanops'' also renders ''Icarops''
paraphyletic in regards to the rest of the family.
Mystacines appear to have been an old
Gondwanan
Gondwana () was a large landmass, often referred to as a supercontinent, that formed during the late Neoproterozoic (about 550 million years ago) and began to break up during the Jurassic period (about 180 million years ago). The final stage ...
lineage; they diverged from other bat groups within
Noctilionoidea
Noctilionoidea is a superfamily of bats containing seven families: Thyropteridae, Furipteridae, Noctilionidae, Mormoopidae, Phyllostomidae, Myzopodidae, and Mystacinidae.
It is one of three superfamilies in the suborder Yangochiroptera, the ...
(a primarily Gondwanan group otherwise including
Noctilionidae,
Phyllostomidae and
Mormoopidae
The family Mormoopidae contains bats known generally as mustached bats, ghost-faced bats, and naked-backed bats. They are found in the Americas from the Southwestern United States to Southeastern Brazil.
They are distinguished by the presenc ...
) around 51-41 million years ago.
Description
Mystacinids have some unusual characteristics compared to other bats. They spend much of the time on the ground, instead of flying, and are unique in having the ability to fold their wings into a leathery membrane when not in use. Another distinctive feature of the group is an additional projection on some of the claws, which may aid in digging or climbing. They are
omnivorous
An omnivore () is an animal that has the ability to eat and survive on both plant and animal matter. Obtaining energy and nutrients from plant and animal matter, omnivores digest carbohydrates, protein, fat, and fiber, and metabolize the nut ...
, eating fruit and carrion in addition to ground-dwelling
arthropod
Arthropods (, (gen. ποδός)) are invertebrate animals with an exoskeleton, a segmented body, and paired jointed appendages. Arthropods form the phylum Arthropoda. They are distinguished by their jointed limbs and cuticle made of chiti ...
s. They also eat pollen and nectar, which they are able to collect with their extensible
tongue
The tongue is a muscular organ in the mouth of a typical tetrapod. It manipulates food for mastication and swallowing as part of the digestive process, and is the primary organ of taste. The tongue's upper surface (dorsum) is covered by taste ...
s. They sometimes chew out burrows in rotting wood, but can also roost in rock crevices or the burrows of seabirds.
Many old sources refer to the terrestriality of these bats as a trait acquired due to island endemism, assumed to have evolved due to the absence of terrestrial mammals in New Zealand. However, ''
Icarops'', a mainland Australian genus, shows adaptations to terrestriality, suggesting that it evolved prior to the colonisation of New Zealand, in an environment dominated by terrestrial mammals such as
marsupials and
monotremes
Monotremes () are prototherian mammals of the order Monotremata. They are one of the three groups of living mammals, along with placentals (Eutheria), and marsupials ( Metatheria). Monotremes are typified by structural differences in their br ...
. Furthermore, the Saint Bathans fossil species co-existed with the
Saint Bathans mammal, suggesting that New Zealand wasn't devoid of land mammals when these bats first arrived.
They give birth once each summer, to a single young. They are able to
hibernate during the winter.
In 2010 the Department of Conservation discovered a
feral cat
A feral cat or a stray cat is an unowned domestic cat (''Felis catus'') that lives outdoors and avoids human contact: it does not allow itself to be handled or touched, and usually remains hidden from humans. Feral cats may breed over dozens ...
that was responsible for killing over 100 short-tailed bats over a seven-day period in a forested area on the southern slope of
Mount Ruapehu
Mount Ruapehu (; ) is an active stratovolcano at the southern end of the Taupō Volcanic Zone and North Island volcanic plateau in New Zealand. It is northeast of Ohakune and southwest of the southern shore of Lake Taupō, within the Tongari ...
.
References
Further reading
*Daniel. M. (1985).
New Zealand's unique burrowing bats are endangered. ''Bats Magazine'' 2 (3).
*
*
External links
Images and videos of the lesser short-tailed bat ''(Mystacina tuberculata)''at
ARKive
ARKive was a global initiative with the mission of "promoting the conservation of the world's threatened species, through the power of wildlife imagery", which it did by locating and gathering films, photographs and audio recordings of the worl ...
{{Taxonbar, from=Q15211016
Bat families
Extant Miocene first appearances
Taxa named by George Edward Dobson
Endemic mammals of New Zealand
Endemic fauna of New Zealand
Mammals of New Zealand