The Malagasy yellow bat (''Scotophilus tandrefana''), sometimes known as the western yellow bat, is a species of

vesper bat Vespertilionidae is a family of microbats, of the order Chiroptera, flying, insect-eating mammals variously described as the common, vesper, or simple nosed bats. The vespertilionid family is the most diverse and widely distributed of bat famili ...

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 else ...

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 2005. 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 sever ...

was collected in 2003 just outside the

Tsingy de Bemaraha Strict Nature Reserve Tsingy de Bemaraha Strict Nature Reserve is a nature reserve located near the western coast of Madagascar in Melaky Region at . The area was listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1990 due to the unique geography, preserved mangrove forests, a ...

. Its

species name In taxonomy, binomial nomenclature ("two-term naming system"), also called nomenclature ("two-name naming system") or binary nomenclature, is a formal system of naming species of living things by giving each a name composed of two parts, bot ...

"'' tandrefana''" is Malagasy for "from the west".

Description

It has a forearm length of approximately , a tail length of , and an ear length of . The holotype weighed . The fur of its back is dark brown, while its belly fur is a medium shade of brown. It uses echolocation to navigate and find prey: it utilizes steep frequency-modulated echolocation (FM) as well as that of a quasi-constant frequency (QCF). Its echolocation reaches maximum energy around 48.2 k Hz. Minimum frequency is 42.2 kHz, while maximum frequency is 91.2 kHz.

Conservation

As of 2019, it is listed as a data deficient species by the IUCN.

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q2166702 Mammals of Madagascar Bats of Africa Scotophilus Mammals described in 2005