Designed by Paul Smith 2006. This website is copyrighted by law.
Material contained herewith may not be used without the prior written permission of FAUNA Paraguay.
Photographs on this web-site were taken by Paul Smith, Hemme Batjes, Regis Nossent,
Alberto Esquivel, Arne Lesterhuis, José Luis Cartes, Rebecca Zarza and Hugo del Castillo and are used with their permission.
Click on the species links for access to the image gallery.
Click on the HBook icon for access to the FAUNA Paraguay Online Handbook of Paraguayan Fauna Account.
See below for a key to the Paraguayan species.
NATALIDAE - FUNNEL-EARED BATS
General characteristics: A single Paraguayan species with a steep forehead and short snout. Natalids are small, delicately-built bats. The eyes are small and the ears are distinctly funnel-shaped. The legs and tail are extremely long, the latter entirely enclosed in the uropatagium which extends beyond the feet. Males possess a gland known as the Natalid Organ on the forehead. The pelage is pale, long and waxy and the membranes pale brownish. Characteristically the thumb is short, the base of which being encased in the antebrachium. The family is known from the Pleistocene of South America.
Cranial characteristics: Postorbital processes lacking. Premaxillaries complete and medially fused.
Dental characteristics: Dental formula I2/3 C1/1 P3/3 M3/3 = 38.
Skeletal characteristics: Third phalange of digit III is cartilaginous except for its basal portion. Trochiter almost as large as the trochin and projects beyond the humeral head. Presternum is as wide as the combined lengths of the presternum and mesosternum. All but two of the lumbar vertebrae and the last thoracic vertebrae are fused.
Natalus Gray, 1838: Funnel-eared Bats
General characteristics: Small, slender bats with long wings, legs and tail. Legs and tail approximately equal to or longer than the head and body. Eyes inconspicuous. Ears long and funnel-shaped. Pelage long, soft and lax.
Cranial characteristics: Delicate with a globular braincase. Sagittal crest low. Rostrum narrow, elongated and tubular.
Taxonomy: The family consists of six species and reaches its greatest diversity in the West Indies. Traditionally all species were placed in the genus Natalus, but a recent review (Morgan & Czaplewski 2003) has suggested that three genera should be recognised.
Natalus stramineus - Gray´s Funnel-eared Bat
REFERENCES
Barquez RM, Giannini MP & Mares MA 1993 - Guía de los Murciélagos de Argentina - University of Oklahoma
Diaz MM & Barquez RM 2002 - Los Mamíferos de Jujuy, Argentina - LOLA
Emmons LH & Feer F 1999 - Mamíferos de los Bosques Húmedos de América Tropical - FAN Bolivia.
Gardner AL 2007 - Mammals of South America Volume 1: Marsupials, Xenarthrans, Shrews and Bats - University of Chicago Press.
López-Gonzalez C 1998 - Systematics and Zoogeography of the Bats of Paraguay - PhD Thesis Texas Tech University
Morgan GS & Czaplewski NK 2003 - A New Bat from the Early Miocene of Florida with Comments on Natalid Phylogeny - Journal of Mammalogy 84: p729-752.
Redford K 1992 - Mammals of the Neotropics Vol 2: The Southern Cone Chile, Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay - University of Chicago Press.
