The Marovaza yellow bat or Marovaza house bat (''Scotophilus marovaza'') is a species of bat found in

Madagascar Madagascar (; mg, Madagasikara, ), officially the Republic of Madagascar ( mg, Repoblikan'i Madagasikara, links=no, ; french: République de Madagascar), is an island country in the Indian Ocean, approximately off the coast of East Africa ...

Taxonomy and etymology

It was described as a new species in 2006. 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 ...

was collected in Marovaza, Madagascar, which inspired its species name.

Description

It is relatively small for its genus. Its forearm is approximately long.

Biology and ecology

It has been found roosting in the palm-leave

thatching Thatching is the craft of building a roof with dry vegetation such as straw, water reed, sedge (''Cladium mariscus''), rushes, heather, or palm branches, layering the vegetation so as to shed water away from the inner roof. Since the bulk of ...

of small huts. It roosts singly or in small

colonies In modern parlance, a colony is a territory subject to a form of foreign rule. Though dominated by the foreign colonizers, colonies remain separate from the administration of the original country of the colonizers, the '' metropolitan state'' ...

of up to five individuals. It navigates and locates prey via echolocation; its calls have a frequency of maximum energy of 43.8–48 k Hz and a maximum frequency of 58–72.6 kHz. Echolocation pulses last 6–8 seconds. Individuals can be infected with ''

Leptospira ''Leptospira'' ( grc, leptos, italics=yes, 'fine, thin' and la, spira, links=no, 'coil') is a genus of spirochaete bacteria, including a small number of pathogenic and saprophytic species. ''Leptospira'' was first observed in 1907 in kidney t ...

''.

Range and habitat

The Marovaza house bat 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 ...

to western Madagascar. It is currently known from lowland areas of above sea level.

Conservation

As of 2017, it is evaluated as a least-concern 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 ...

References

{{taxonbar, from=Q2561104 Mammals of Madagascar Bats of Africa Mammals described in 2006 Scotophilus