Nyctalus noctula
The common noctule is a species of insectivorous bat common throughout Europe, Asia, and North Africa.

Mnolf · CC BY-SA 3.0 · 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
- NyctalusPBDB
- Diet
- omnivorePBDB, for Vespertilionidae
- Life habit
- volantPBDB, for Chiroptera
- Motility
- actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
- Environment
- terrestrialPBDB, for Chiroptera
Time the record covers
At least 117 thousand years on record.
The record covers at least 129 ka to 11.7 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 2.58 Mya to 0 Mya.
5 occurrences of Nyctalus noctula 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
5 occurrences- Pleistocene60%
- Holocene40%
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
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The named rock units Nyctalus noctula has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 4 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.
Nyctalus noctula and its relatives
PleistoceneWhere Nyctalus noctula and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.
Found in the same rock
173 taxa- Eptesicus4 sites
- Arvicola3 sites
- Cervus elaphus3 sites
- Equus3 sites
- Lepus3 sites
- Microtus3 sites
- Myotis3 sites
- Myotis myotis3 sites
- Rhinolophus ferrumequinum3 sites
- Sorex3 sites
- Sorex minutus3 sites
- Sus scrofa3 sites
- Ursus deningeri3 sites
- Barbastella2 sites
- Bison2 sites
- Bufo2 sites
- Bufo bufo2 sites
- Canis lupus2 sites
- Capreolus capreolus2 sites
- Crocuta2 sites
- Dama dama2 sites
- Equus caballus2 sites
- Felis2 sites
- Homotherium2 sites
The Paleobiology Database records 5 sites for Nyctalus noctula, 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
5 references- Understanding the biogeography of Western European bats: the latest Pleistocene to Middle Holocene assemblage of El Mirador site (Sierra de Atapuerca, Spain)1
- First record of serotine bat Eptesicus serotinus (Chiroptera: Vespertilionidae) from Early-Middle Holocene in southern Europe (Boeotia - Greece)1
- Mittelpleistozane Saugetierfaunen aus Mitteleuropa - der Versuch einer biostratigraphischen Zuordnung1
- Insularity and Quaternary vertebrate faunas in Britain and Ireland1
- Remarks on the Middle and Lower Pleistocene vertebrate fauna in the Petralona Cave1
Each of the 5 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 content2
Picture of Nyctalus noctula
- Source
- Wikipedia/Commons
- Credit
- Mnolf
- Licence
- CC BY-SA 3.0
- Commercial use
- the licence allows it
3D model
- Source
- Sketchfab
- Licence
- CC Attribution
- Commercial use
- cannot be read from the licence given — check the record
MorphoSource 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 itNyctalus through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on
Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. (Schreber 1774)