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Multiple exceptionally preserved specimens, among the best preserved bat fossils, are known from the Green River Formation of North America. [ 1 ] [ 2 ] The best known species is I. index. [ 3 ] Fragmentary material from France has also been tentatively placed within Icaronycteris as the second species I. menui . [ 4 ]
Most of the oldest known bat fossils were already very similar to modern microbats, such as Archaeopteropus (32 million years ago). The oldest known bat fossils include Archaeonycteris praecursor and Altaynycteris aurora (55–56 million years ago), both known only from isolated teeth.
[1] [2] The family Palaeochiropterygidae was also merged into Archaeonycteridae by Kurten and Anderson, but modern authorities specializing in bat fossils maintain the distinction between the two. [3] [4] They existed from the Ypresian to the Lutetian ages of the Middle Eocene epoch (55.8 to 40.4 million years ago). [1]
Onychonycteris finneyi was the strongest evidence so far in the debate on whether bats developed echolocation before or after they evolved the ability to fly. O. finneyi had well-developed wings, and could clearly fly, but lacked the enlarged cochlea of all extant echolocating bats, closely resembling the old world fruit bats which do not echolocate. [1]
Palaeochiropterygidae was merged into Archaeonycteridae by Kurten and Anderson in 1980, but modern authorities specializing in bat fossils maintain the distinction between the two. [ 1 ] [ 2 ] It was classified to the unranked clade Microchiropteramorpha by Smith et al. in 2007.
Archaeonycteris is an archaic bat genus whose fossilised remains have been found in Germany, France, England and India. The genus was established in 1917, when Pierre Revilliod described the material excavated at the Messel Pit as the fossil species Archaeonycteris trigonodon. Archaeonycteris trigonodon Revilliod, 1917 - Messel Pit , Germany [1]
Palaeochiropteryx (/ ˌ p æ l i oʊ k aɪ ˈ r ɒ p t ər ɪ k s / PAL-ee-oh-ky-ROP-tər-iks) is an extinct genus of bat from the Middle Eocene of Europe and North America.It contains three very similar species – Palaeochiropteryx tupaiodon and Palaeochiropteryx spiegeli, both from the famous Messel Pit of Germany, as well as Palaeochiropteryx sambuceus from the Sheep Pass Formation (Nevada ...
More recently, E. Maitre has described the fossils in more detail. [6] [7] [8] N. grandis and N. planifrons have been considered indistinguishable from N. adichaster, but N. gerzei and N. marandati may be distinct enough to retain their respective statuses as distinct species. Several indeterminate bat fossils in France may belong to Necromantis.