Ia
Ia is a genus of bat in the family Vespertilionidae. It belongs to the subfamily Vespertilioninae and has been placed in the tribe Vespertilionini. In the past, it has also been considered a synonym or subgenus of the genera Pipistrellus or Eptesicus, which used to contain many more species than they do now. Ia comprises a single living species, the great evening bat (I. io) of eastern and southeastern Asia, and one extinct fossil species, I. lanna, from the Miocene epoch in Thailand. Another living species, I. longimana, was recognized in the past, but it is no longer considered a valid species distinct from the great evening bat.

Next Continent: Wildlife, Photography and Natural History Tours · CC BY-NC 4.0 · via GBIF. May be a photograph of a specimen, or an artist’s reconstruction — an interpretation of a skeleton, since colour and soft tissue are almost never preserved.
On record
Recorded, not inferred- Sits inside
- VespertilionidaePBDB
- Diet
- omnivorePBDB, for Vespertilionidae
- Life habit
- volantPBDB, for Chiroptera
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
- Environment
- terrestrialPBDB, for Chiroptera
Time the record covers
At least 11 million years on record.
The record covers at least 13.82 Mya to 2.58 Mya. No occurrence read is dated outside 20.45 Mya to 774 ka.
2 occurrences of Ia on record, most of them in the Miocene. Bar height is expected occurrences, not a count: each fossil is spread across the span it is dated to, so a tall narrow bar means tight dating and a low wide one means loose.
When
2 occurrences- Miocene50%
- Pleistocene50%
These are dates about fossils, not the animal: the record can only begin after it arose and end before it died out, so either end may reach further. Shares are expected occurrences: a fossil dated to a span is counted partly in each period it straddles. More on what this infers.
Ia and its relatives
MioceneWhere Ia and its relatives were recorded in the Miocene.
Found in the same rock
120 taxa- Martes2 sites
- ? Homiodorcas sp.1 site
- Acrochordus1 site
- Ailuropoda wulingshanensis1 site
- Anatidae1 site
- Anourosorex1 site
- Apodemus1 site
- Arctonyx collaris1 site
- Aselliscus1 site
- Atherurus1 site
- Atlantoxerus1 site
- Belomys1 site
- Blarinella1 site
- Bos (Bibos)1 site
- Brachipposideros1 site
- Caprinae1 site
- Cervavitus fenqii1 site
- Chiropodomys1 site
- Colubridae1 site
- Conohyus sindiensis1 site
- Copemys1 site
- Crocidura1 site
- Cuon1 site
- Cyprinidae1 site
The Paleobiology Database records 2 sites for Ia, and this reads all of them. The number is how many of those sites it was catalogued from too. The 24 sharing the most are listed.
This is not a list of everything alive at the time. It is only what has come out of the same ground as this animal and been written down.
Entered from
2 references- A newly discovered Gigantopithecus fauna from Sanhe Cave, Chongzuo, Guangxi, South China1
- Les mammiferes du gisement miocene inferieure de Li Mae Long, Thailande; Systematique biostratigraphie et paleoenvironment1
Each of the 2 occurrences read was entered from one of these publications, ordered by how many each accounts for. This is not a search for papers mentioning the name. Entries link to doi.org where the Paleobiology Database holds an identifier, and to its own record where it does not. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.
Media and terms
Media content1

Picture of Ia
- Source
- GBIF
- Credit
- Next Continent: Wildlife, Photography and Natural History Tours
- Licence
- CC BY-NC 4.0
- Commercial use
- the licence does not allow it
No repository was searched for a 3D scan: the genus name is too short to search on without matching most of the record.
The description on this site
- Source
- Wikipedia, “Ia (genus)”
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 4.0
This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.
Keep going
What may have been alongside itVespertilionidae through timeFormations of the MioceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Thomas 1902