The short-palated fruit bat (''Casinycteris argynnis'') is a species of

frugivorous A frugivore is an animal that thrives mostly on raw fruits or succulent fruit-like produce of plants such as roots, shoots, nuts and seeds. Approximately 20% of mammalian herbivores eat fruit. Frugivores are highly dependent on the abundance and ...

megabat in the family Pteropodidae. It is found in

Cameroon Cameroon (; french: Cameroun, ff, Kamerun), officially the Republic of Cameroon (french: République du Cameroun, links=no), is a country in west-central Africa. It is bordered by Nigeria to the west and north; Chad to the northeast; the C ...

Central African Republic The Central African Republic (CAR; ; , RCA; , or , ) is a landlocked country in Central Africa. It is bordered by Chad to the north, Sudan to the northeast, South Sudan to the southeast, the DR Congo to the south, the Republic of th ...

, and

Democratic Republic of the Congo The Democratic Republic of the Congo (french: République démocratique du Congo (RDC), colloquially "La RDC" ), informally Congo-Kinshasa, DR Congo, the DRC, the DROC, or the Congo, and formerly and also colloquially Zaire, is a country in ...

. Its natural habitat is subtropical or tropical moist lowland forests. Births occur in May.

Description

The head and body of the bat measures from in length and have a

vestigial Vestigiality is the retention, during the process of evolution, of genetically determined structures or attributes that have lost some or all of the ancestral function in a given species. Assessment of the vestigiality must generally rely on co ...

tail. The forearm length is about . The wing membrane joins with the

phalanges The phalanges (singular: ''phalanx'' ) are digital bones in the hands and feet of most vertebrates. In primates, the thumbs and big toes have two phalanges while the other digits have three phalanges. The phalanges are classed as long bones. ...

of the first toe rather than the second toe as typical in many other fruit bats. The bat weigh anywhere from . The fur is a light brown but the snout, eyelids, ears, and wings can be yellowish green to bright orange in color. The fine hair of the brown fur is brown at its base, lightens in its center, and becomes brown again at the end. At the base of the ears there are tufts of white hairs and two oblong white patches are present between and behind the eyes. The round pupil of the bat is quite large, almost obscuring the yellow-brown iris. The flat nose is pinkish and the ears, as wing membranes, are yellowish-brown. The premolars and molars are abnormally shaped and the spreading

zygomatic arch In anatomy, the zygomatic arch, or cheek bone, is a part of the skull formed by the zygomatic process of the temporal bone (a bone extending forward from the side of the skull, over the opening of the ear) and the temporal process of the zygomati ...

es coupled with the ascending

ramus Ramus can refer to: * A branch (botany) * A portion of a bone (from Latin ''ramus'', "branch"), as in the Ramus of the mandible or Superior pubic ramus * A nerve ramus such as the Dorsal ramus of spinal nerve * A taxonomic rank ("branch" in English ...

indicates a crushing rather than cutting biting mechanism. These characteristics as well as the short and bony

palate The palate () is the roof of the mouth in humans and other mammals. It separates the oral cavity from the nasal cavity. A similar structure is found in crocodilians, but in most other tetrapods, the oral and nasal cavities are not truly sepa ...

suggest a radically different diet as compared to typical frugivorous bats, and the short tooth row is typical of an

insectivorous A robber fly eating a hoverfly An insectivore is a carnivorous animal or plant that eats insects. An alternative term is entomophage, which can also refer to the human practice of eating insects. The first vertebrate insectivores were ...

rather than frugivorous bat.

Conservation

Though the bat may be locally abundant in Africa, it is threatened by

deforestation Deforestation or forest clearance is the removal of a forest or stand of trees from land that is then converted to non-forest use. Deforestation can involve conversion of forest land to farms, ranches, or urban use. The most concentrated d ...

. 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 ...

lists the species as "Least Concern" as deforestation is unlikely lead to a major decline in the bat's population.

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q2140268 Mammals described in 1910 Taxa named by Oldfield Thomas Mammals of Cameroon Mammals of the Central African Republic Mammals of the Democratic Republic of the Congo Bats of Africa Casinycteris Taxonomy articles created by Polbot fr:Casinycteris