The genusTadarida has eight species of bats divided into two subgenera, with the first of these containing seven species spread across the Old World (including southern Europe and North Africa, large parts of southern Asia, and India right across to Japan). Four species occour exclusively in Africa including Madagascar while two more species occur in central Papua New Guinea, and western and southern Australia respectively.
The relatively well known species T. teniotis, which occurs in southern Europe and North Africa, the Middle East and all the way across southern Asia to Japan, is known to fly often during the late afternoon where it will hawk for insects alongside swifts (Apodidae), swallows and martins Hirundinidae.
The Australian species T. australis is the largest in the genus, with a head and body length of 85-100 mm, and a tail length of 40-55 mm.
The other subgenus contains the widespread New World single species T. brasiliensis (Subgenus Rhizomops) which ranges from the southern United States including the West Indies all the way down to Chile and Argentina. This species is noted for its massive maternity colonies in the United States especially in the southwest where an estimated population of + 25 million (possibly as high as 50 million) existed in Eagle Creek Cave in Arizona in the 1960s.
The specimen was scanned by Matthew Colbert on 10 September 2003 along the sagittal axis for a total of 1161 slices, each slice 0.097 mm thick with an interslice spacing of 0.097 mm.
DigiMorph Staff, 2005, "Tadarida brasiliensis" (On-line), Digital Morphology.
The presence of Tadarida-like teeth in the early Miocene of Florida and definite fossils of Tadarida from the late Pliocene of Florida and the early to medial Pleistocene of Kentucky, New Mexico, and West Virginia, suggest that the New World representatives of this genus may have originated in North America.
Tadarida, Mormopterus, or a closely related genus may have immigrated to North America from Eurasia across the Bering isthmus in the early Miocene or before.
Several species of Tadarida and Mormopterus are known from Oligocene and Miocene sites in Europe and Asia (Legendre 1984b).
Feeds |
Contact