Mystacinidae
Mystacinidae is a family of unusual bats, the New Zealand short-tailed bats. There is one living genus, Mystacina, with two species, one of which could have possibly become extinct in the 1960s. They are medium-sized bats, about 6 centimetres (2.4 in) in length, with grey, velvety fur.
GH Ford · 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- Also called
- New Zealand short-tailed batPBDB
- Sits inside
- NoctilionoideaPBDB
- Diet
- frugivore, insectivorePBDB
- 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 15.9 Mya to 11.7 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 18.7 Mya to 0 Mya.
26 occurrences of Mystacinidae on record. 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
26 occurrences- Miocene35%
- Pleistocene18%
- Holocene48%
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.
Found in
1 formation
- Bannockburn Formation · Manuherikia Group9
Loading coastlines…
The named rock units Mystacinidae has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 17 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.
Found in the same rock
119 taxa- Mystacina robusta15 sites
- Coenocorypha aucklandica12 sites
- Cyanoramphus12 sites
- Hoplodactylus maculatus12 sites
- Aegotheles novaezealandiae10 sites
- Coturnix novaezelandiae10 sites
- Rattus exulans10 sites
- Turnagra capensis10 sites
- Mohoua ochrocephala9 sites
- Petroica australis9 sites
- Rhipidura fuliginosa8 sites
- Tadorna variegata8 sites
- Xenicus8 sites
- Anthornis melanura7 sites
- Hemiphaga novaeseelandiae7 sites
- Hoplodactylus duvaucelii7 sites
- Dinornithiformes6 sites
- Gallirallus australis6 sites
- Mus musculus6 sites
- Prosthemadera novaeseelandiae6 sites
- Sphenodon6 sites
- Callaeas cinereus5 sites
- Mohoua novaeseelandiae5 sites
- Ninox novaeseelandiae5 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 20 sites for Mystacinidae, 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
6 references- Quaternary fossil fauna of South Canterbury, South Island, New Zealand12
- Miocene Mystacinids (Chiroptera, Noctilionoidea) Indicate a Long History For Endemic Bats in New Zealand4
- Taphonomy of two holocene microvertebrate deposits, Takaka Hill, Nelson, New Zealand, and identification of the avian predator responsible4
- A new, large-bodied omnivorous bat (Noctilionoidea: Mystacinidae) reveals lost morphological and ecological diversity since the Miocene in New Zealand3
- Miocene Fossils Reveal Ancient Roots for New Zealand’s Endemic Mystacina (Chiroptera) and Its Rainforest Habitat2
- Quaternary fossil faunas from caves in Takaka Valley and on Takaka Hill, northwest Nelson, South Island, New Zealand1
Each of the 26 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. Each entry links to doi.org. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.
Media and terms
Media content1
Picture of Mystacinidae
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- GH Ford
- Licence
- Public Domain
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
No 3D scan of Mystacinidae was found in Sketchfab.
Smithsonian Open Access and MorphoSource were 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 itNoctilionoidea through timeThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Dobson 1875