Macroderma
Macroderma is a genus of microbats, present in the fossil record and as one extant species. They have existed in Australia since the early Miocene.

Uncredited · Public Domain · via Wikipedia/Commons. 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
- MegadermatidaePBDB
- Diet
- omnivorePBDB, for Megadermatidae
- Life habit
- volantPBDB, for Chiroptera
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
- Environment
- terrestrialPBDB, for Chiroptera
Time the record covers
At least 15 million years on record.
The record covers at least 15.98 Mya to 129 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 23.04 Mya to 0 Mya.
11 occurrences of Macroderma on record, most of them in the Pleistocene. The Paleobiology Database records this as a living group. 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
11 occurrences- Miocene27%
- Pliocene18%
- Pleistocene55%
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.
Macroderma and its relatives
PleistoceneWhere Macroderma and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.
Found in the same rock
136 taxa- Trichosurus3 sites
- Varanus3 sites
- Brachipposideros2 sites
- Cercartetus2 sites
- Isoodon obesulus2 sites
- Lechriodus intergerivus2 sites
- Palorchestes2 sites
- Sminthopsis2 sites
- Testudines2 sites
- Thylacinus cynocephalus2 sites
- "Dasycerus" worboysi n. sp.1 site
- <Mollusca>1 site
- <Rodent>1 site
- <Small bats>1 site
- <Small birds>1 site
- <Small reptiles>1 site
- Acrobates pygmaeus1 site
- Aepyprymnus rufescens1 site
- Antechinus1 site
- Antechinus flavipes1 site
- Aves1 site
- Barawertornis tedfordi1 site
- Barinya wangala1 site
- Bettongia1 site
The Paleobiology Database records 11 sites for Macroderma, 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
8 references- New fossil localities for Macroderma Miller, 1906 (Chiroptera, Megadermatidae) in New South Wales and its past and present distribution in Australia4
- A new hipposiderid genus (Microchiroptera) from an early Miocene bat community in Australia1
- The Encore Local Fauna, a late Miocene assemblage from Riversleigh, northwestern Queensland1
- The Big Sink local fauna; a lower Pliocene mammalian fauna from the Wellington Caves complex, Wellington, New South Wales1
- The late Quaternary sediments and fossil vertebrate fauna from Cathedral Cave, Wellington Caves, New South Wales1
- Fossil mammals of Riversleigh, northwestern Queensland; preliminary overview of biostratigraphy, correlation and environmental change1
- Macroderma koppa, a new Tertiary species of false vampire bat (Microchiroptera; Megadermatidae) from Wellington Caves, New South Wales1
- The crocodile from Tea Tree Cave and ziphodont crocodiles in Australia1
Each of the 11 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 Macroderma
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- nobody named on the record
- Licence
- Public Domain
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
No 3D scan of Macroderma was found in MorphoSource and Sketchfab.
Smithsonian Open Access was not reached for this taxon, so this list is what the others held rather than everything there is.
The description on this site
- 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 itMegadermatidae through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Miller