mouse-tailed bats
rhinopomatidae latin

Lesser mouse-tailed bats are well adapted to live in hot, dry climates.

Male lesser mouse-tailed bats mature at sixteen to seventeen months of age.

Mouse-tailed bats become torpid during cold weather, although they do not truly hibernate.

Mouse-tailed bats get their name from their long tails, which are almost entirely free of the wing membrane.

Mouse-tailed bats (rhinopomatids)

Family Rhinopomatidae (mouse-tailed bats)

Lesser mouse-tailed bats are insectivorous, feeding primarily on beetles, neuropterans and moths, many of which are considered pests by humans.

Mouse-tailed bats are a group of insectivorous bats of the family Rhinopomatidae with only three to six species, all contained in the single genus Rhinopoma.

While landing or flying around in groups around the roost-site, lesser mouse-tailed bats emit frequency modulated (FM) sounds of 3 ms duration.

Lesser mouse-tailed bats hunt for insects at heights ranging from 5 to 10 meters off the ground, often being mistaken for birds due to their pattern of swooping and gliding.

Lesser mouse-tailed bats are considered to be a primitive bat in terms of echolocation, primarily due to the reason that these bats produce signals with four or more harmonics with limited frequency variation.

Other studies have recently suggested that certain families of microbats (possibly the horseshoe bats, mouse-tailed bats and the false vampires) are evolutionarily closer to the fruit bats than to other microbats.

Based on this determination, the bat's closest relatives are members of the families Hipposideridae and Rhinopomatidae.

Family Rhinopomatidae (mouse-tailed bats)

The lesser mouse-tailed bat (Rhinopoma hardwickii Gray, 1831) is a species of bat in the family Rhinopomatidae.

Mouse-tailed bats are a group of insectivorous bats of the family Rhinopomatidae with only three to six species, all contained in the single genus Rhinopoma.

The Yangochiroptera is a proposed suborder of Chiroptera that includes most of the microbat families, except the Rhinopomatidae, Rhinolophidae and the Megadermatidae.

The new suborder Yinpterochiroptera includes the Pteropodidae or megabat family, as well as the Rhinolophidae, Hipposideridae, Craseonycteridae, Megadermatidae, and Rhinopomatidae families The new suborder Yangochiroptera includes all the remaining families of bats (all of which use laryngeal echolocation).