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Mystacinidae is a family of unusual
bats, the New Zealand short-tailed bats. There is one living
genus, ''
Mystacina
''Mystacina'' is the sole surviving genus of the family Mystacinidae. The New Zealand lesser short-tailed bat is the only member of this group confirmed to survive today, since the closely related New Zealand greater short-tailed bat
The New Z ...
'', 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 of
Australia
Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...
, with the genus ''
Icarops
''Icarops'' is an extinct, possibly paraphyletic genus of mystacine bat with three described species. The genus is known from fossils found at Riversleigh, north-western Queensland, Bullock Creek, Northern Territory, and Lake Ngapakaldi to La ...
''. Several fossil species are also known from the contemporary
Saint Bathans Fauna in New Zealand. The oldest unambiguous fossils of the living genus date to the
Miocene of New Zealand. A second extinct genus, ''
Vulcanops
''Vulcanops jennyworthyae'' is an extinct species of bat that lived during the Miocene in New Zealand, a large burrowing microchiropteran that probably ate arthropods and plant material around twenty million years before present. It is the type ...
'', 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 taxonomy (general), taxonomy, a group is paraphyletic if it consists of the group's most recent common ancestor, last common ancestor and most of its descendants, excluding a few Monophyly, monophyletic subgroups. The group is said to be pa ...
in regards to the rest of the family.
Mystacines appear to have been an old
Gondwanan 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) 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, eating fruit and carrion in addition to ground-dwelling
arthropods. They also eat pollen and nectar, which they are able to collect with their extensible
tongues. 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
''Icarops'' is an extinct, possibly paraphyletic genus of mystacine bat with three described species. The genus is known from fossils found at Riversleigh, north-western Queensland, Bullock Creek, Northern Territory, and Lake Ngapakaldi to La ...
'', 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
Marsupials are any members of the mammalian infraclass Marsupialia. All extant marsupials are endemic to Australasia, Wallacea and the Americas. A distinctive characteristic common to most of these species is that the young are carried in a po ...
and
monotremes. Furthermore, the Saint Bathans fossil species co-existed with the
Saint Bathans mammal
The Saint Bathans mammal is a currently unnamed extinct primitive mammal from the Early Miocene (Altonian) of New Zealand. A member of the Saint Bathans fauna, it is notable for being a late-surviving "archaic" mammal species, neither a placental ...
, 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
Hibernation is a state of minimal activity and metabolic depression undergone by some animal species. Hibernation is a seasonal heterothermy characterized by low body-temperature, slow breathing and heart-rate, and low metabolic rate. It most ...
during the winter.
In 2010 the Department of Conservation discovered a
feral cat 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.
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
{{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