Bat Family Tree

This Lesser Mouse-tailed Bat, Rhinopoma hardwickii, is one of approximately 1,100 species of bats.  A new bat family tree, developed from genetic information, has shed some light on the rich evolutionary history of these flying mammals.

The number of bat species is about one fifth that of all mammalian species.  A dearth in bat fossils has made it difficult to trace the lineages of this diverse group.

But Emma Teeling of the National Cancer Institute and her colleagues have used bat DNA to fill in some of the gaps.  In an article for Science published today, they estimate that approximately 60 percent of the bat fossil record is missing.

With their detailed family tree, the biologists contend that many new species evolved out of the early Eocene (around 50 million years ago), which was also the time of a significant global rise in temperature and an increase in plant and insect diversity. 

Nancy Simmons, of the American Museum of Natural History, does not think the explosion of bugs and bats was a coincidence.

"As flying predators capable of capturing prey on the wing, they would have had few competitors for the rich resources of the Eocene night," Simmons wrote in a separate commentary.

-- LiveScience Staff

Credit: Paul Bates