A bat species thought to be restricted to temperate forests has been found living thousands of miles from its known range in the sweltering heat of the southern Indian rainforest.
The discovery of the Eastern Barbastelle bat, a tiny, insect eating bat with distinctive silky black fur and large ears, in India's southern Western Ghats was made by a team of researchers from the University of Leeds, the National Centre for Biological Sciences in India and the Nature Conservation Foundation of India, who are building a library of echolocation calls of southern Indian bats.
"It is a real shock to find the Eastern Barbastelle in the tropics -- a bit like finding a red squirrel in the rainforest," said lead researcher Claire Wordley of the University of Leeds' Faculty of Biological Sciences.
Posts
