Dent's horseshoe bat (''Rhinolophus denti'') is a species of

bat Bats are flying mammals of the order Chiroptera (). With their forelimbs adapted as wings, they are the only mammals capable of true and sustained flight. Bats are more agile in flight than most birds, flying with their very long spread-out ...

in the family Rhinolophidae. It is found in

Angola Angola, officially the Republic of Angola, is a country on the west-Central Africa, central coast of Southern Africa. It is the second-largest Portuguese-speaking world, Portuguese-speaking (Lusophone) country in both total area and List of c ...

Botswana Botswana, officially the Republic of Botswana, is a landlocked country in Southern Africa. Botswana is topographically flat, with approximately 70 percent of its territory part of the Kalahari Desert. It is bordered by South Africa to the sou ...

Ghana Ghana, officially the Republic of Ghana, is a country in West Africa. It is situated along the Gulf of Guinea and the Atlantic Ocean to the south, and shares borders with Côte d’Ivoire to the west, Burkina Faso to the north, and Togo to t ...

Guinea Guinea, officially the Republic of Guinea, is a coastal country in West Africa. It borders the Atlantic Ocean to the west, Guinea-Bissau to the northwest, Senegal to the north, Mali to the northeast, Côte d'Ivoire to the southeast, and Sier ...

Guinea-Bissau Guinea-Bissau, officially the Republic of Guinea-Bissau, is a country in West Africa that covers with an estimated population of 2,026,778. It borders Senegal to Guinea-Bissau–Senegal border, its north and Guinea to Guinea–Guinea-Bissau b ...

Namibia Namibia, officially the Republic of Namibia, is a country on the west coast of Southern Africa. Its borders include the Atlantic Ocean to the west, Angola and Zambia to the north, Botswana to the east and South Africa to the south; in the no ...

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the Southern Africa, southernmost country in Africa. Its Provinces of South Africa, nine provinces are bounded to the south by of coastline that stretches along the Atlantic O ...

, and

Zimbabwe file:Zimbabwe, relief map.jpg, upright=1.22, Zimbabwe, relief map Zimbabwe, officially the Republic of Zimbabwe, is a landlocked country in Southeast Africa, between the Zambezi and Limpopo Rivers, bordered by South Africa to the south, Bots ...

. The bat's natural

habitat In ecology, habitat refers to the array of resources, biotic factors that are present in an area, such as to support the survival and reproduction of a particular species. A species' habitat can be seen as the physical manifestation of its ...

s are dry

savanna A savanna or savannah is a mixed woodland-grassland (i.e. grassy woodland) biome and ecosystem characterised by the trees being sufficiently widely spaced so that the canopy does not close. The open canopy allows sufficient light to reach th ...

h country and it roosts in

cave Caves or caverns are natural voids under the Earth's Planetary surface, surface. Caves often form by the weathering of rock and often extend deep underground. Exogene caves are smaller openings that extend a relatively short distance undergrou ...

s and other subterranean habitats.

Description

Dent's horseshoe bat is a small species measuring about in length and weighing . The fur is long and silky, light brown or grey on the upper parts and paler underneath. The wings are brown with white margins.

Ecology

Dent's horseshoe bat is a colonial species which roosts in groups varying from a few individuals to over a hundred. The roosts are usually in cool, humid caves. The bats have the ability to enter a state of

torpor Torpor is a state of decreased physiological activity in an animal, usually marked by a reduced body temperature and metabolic rate. Torpor enables animals to survive periods of reduced food availability. The term "torpor" can refer to the ti ...

under certain environmental conditions. The bats are

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

, feeding on a variety of soft-bodied insects caught on the wing at night. Little is known of the breeding habits of this bat, but they are likely to be similar to those of other '' Rhinolophus'' species, with a single offspring becoming independent about two months after it is born.

Status

Dent's horseshoe bat has two distinct populations separated by a gap of hundreds of kilometres. One is in West Africa, in Senegal, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau and Ghana, the other in southern Africa; southern Angola, Namibia, western Botswana, western Zimbabwe and northern South Africa. It may well be more abundant than is presently apparent, but currently, fewer than a hundred colonies are known from West Africa and fewer than two hundred from Southern Africa. The population trend for this bat is unknown, but it faces no particular threats other than the possible disturbance of its roosting sites, and the

International Union for Conservation of Nature The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) is an international organization working in the field of nature conservation and sustainable use of natural resources. Founded in 1948, IUCN has become the global authority on the stat ...

has rated its conservation status as being of "

least concern A least-concern species is a species that has been evaluated and categorized by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) as not being a focus of wildlife conservation because the specific species is still plentiful in the wil ...

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q1765137 Rhinolophidae Mammals described in 1904 Bats of Africa Mammals of Angola Mammals of Botswana Mammals of West Africa Mammals of Namibia Mammals of South Africa Mammals of Zimbabwe Taxonomy articles created by Polbot Taxa named by Oldfield Thomas