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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 ...
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.
The 2003 discovery of an early fossil bat from the 52-million-year-old Green River Formation, Onychonycteris finneyi, indicates that flight evolved before echolocative abilities. [27] [28] Onychonycteris had claws on all five of its fingers, whereas modern bats have at most two claws on two digits of each hand.
[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]
In addition, several fossil genera are known; the oldest fossils attributed to the family are from the middle Eocene of Europe. [4] In their 1997 Classification of Mammals , Malcolm C. McKenna and Susan K. Bell proposed a division of Hipposideridae (called Rhinonycterinae in their work) into three tribes , one with two subtribes, [ 5 ] but ...
Several indeterminate bat fossils in France may belong to Necromantis. [9] [10] Currently, only jaws and skulls are known, with a single humerus known as a postcranial remain. More recently, Necromantis fragmentatum has been found in the Late Eocene deposits of Djebel Chambi, Tunisia. This north African species is known from several isolated ...
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]