The Southeast Asian long-fingered bat (''Miniopterus fuscus'') is a species of vesper bat in the family Miniopteridae. It is endemic to

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...

and has been assessed as endangered 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 ...

Description and biology

The bat has an average body mass of and a forearm length of . Females give birth to a single young in early June. The species forages over forests and mainly feeds on butterflies, moths,

Hymenoptera Hymenoptera is a large order (biology), order of insects, comprising the sawfly, sawflies, wasps, bees, and ants. Over 150,000 living species of Hymenoptera have been described, in addition to over 2,000 extinct ones. Many of the species are Par ...

, and flies.

Habitat and distribution

The species is found in Amami-Oshima, Tokuno-shima,

Okinoerabu Island , also known as Okinoerabu, is one of the Satsunan Islands, classed with the Amami archipelago between Kyūshū and Okinawa. The island, 93.63 km² in area, has a population of approximately 14,000 persons. Administratively it is divided into th ...

Okinawa Island is the largest of the Okinawa Islands and the Ryukyu (''Nansei'') Islands of Japan in the Kyushu region. It is the smallest and least populated of the five main islands of Japan. The island is approximately long, an average wide, and has an ...

, Kume Island, Ishigaki, and Iriomote Island in Japan. It was collected from the Kii peninsula in Honshu in 1933, but is now considered

extinct Extinction is the termination of a kind of organism or of a group of kinds (taxon), usually a species. The moment of extinction is generally considered to be the death of the last individual of the species, although the capacity to breed and ...

there. It inhabits forests and roosts in mines and caves, in colonies of several hundred individuals. There were large maternity colonies in the past, but these have become rare. There is a colony of 10,000 females on Okinawa Island.

Conservation

The species has been assessed as endangered by the IUCN Red List due to its small area of inhabitance, degradation of its habitat, and disturbance of caves where it roosts. Some caves roosted by this species are lined with electricity for tourism and also face development near the caves. A new airport has been constructed nearby on Ishigaki Island above several caves frequented by these bats. It does not occur in any protected areas.

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q2051769 Miniopteridae Bats of Asia Taxonomy articles created by Polbot Mammals described in 1902 Taxa named by J. Lewis Bonhote Endemic mammals of Japan