The Noctilionidae family of bats, commonly known as Bulldog bats, are represented by two species, the Greater Bulldog Bat and the Lesser Bulldog Bat. The Naked Bulldog Bat, Cheiromeles torquatus is not of this family and belongs to the family Molossidae, the free-tailed bats.
The systematic affinities of the family Noctilionidae were debated for many years.
Recent analyses of large molecular and morphological datasets provide strong evidence that these bats are closely allied with the other exclusively neotropical bat families, Mormoopidae and Phyllostomidae, and with the endemic New Zealand family, Mystacinidae, that together form the superfamily Noctilionoidea.
Czaplewski, Nicholas J. "Opossums (Didelphidae) and Bats (Noctilionidae and Molossidae) from the Late Miocene of the Amazon Basin." Journal of Mammalogy 77 (1996): 84–94.
Noctilio albiventris minor, the lesser bulldog bat, is native to Central and South America.
It is the smaller of the two species in the family Noctilionidae.
It is insectivorous, but may sometimes eat small minnows that it captures with its feet from the surface of small ponds and streams (the larger species of the genus, Noctilio leporinus, routinely eats fish).
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