|
Australonycteris
''Australonycteris'' is an extinct and monotypic genus of microchiropteran bat with the single species ''Australonycteris clarkae''. The species is known from fragmentary remains found at the Murgon fossil site, in south-eastern Queensland, dating to the early Eocene, 54.6 million years ago. It is the oldest bat from the Southern Hemisphere and one of the oldest bats in the world, and inhabited forests and swampy areas, with a diet of insects and possibly small fish. Taxonomy A monotypic genus allied to the family Archaeonycteridae, or classified by an indeterminate familial arrangement, describing fossil material collected at Murgon in 1994. The type specimen is a tooth. The material was discovered at the Tingamarra Local Fauna – Boat Mountain deposit, the type and only known location of fossil evidence of the species. The phylogenetic relationship to other Chiroptera is uncertain, but may represent an early geographic dispersal and separation from the crown clade of bat ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Archaeonycteridae
Archaeonycteridae (formerly spelled Archaeonycterididae) is a family of extinct bats. It was originally erected by the Swiss naturalist Pierre Revilliod as Archaeonycterididae to hold the genus '' Archaeonycteris''. It was formerly classified under the superfamily Icaronycteroidea (disused) by Kurten and Anderson in 1980. In 2007, the spelling was corrected to Archaeonycteridae and it was reclassified to the unranked clade Microchiropteramorpha by Smith ''et al.''. The family Palaeochiropterygidae was also merged into Archaeonycteridae by Kurten and Anderson, but modern authorities specializing in bat fossils maintain the distinction between the two. They existed from the Ypresian to the Lutetian ages of the Middle Eocene epoch (55.8 to 40.4 million years ago). The family is known to closely resemble modern bat species from the well preserved specimens found in the Messel Pit Fossil Site in Germany. Other discoveries were made in Europe and other areas of the Northern Hemispher ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Murgon Fossil Site
The Murgon fossil site is a paleontological site of early Eocene age in south-eastern Queensland, Australia. It lies near the town of Murgon, some 270 km north-west of Brisbane. The Murgon site is important as the only site on the continent with a diverse range of vertebrate fossils dating from the early Paleogene Period (55 million years ago, only 11 million years after the extinction of the non-avian dinosaurs), making it a crucial period in mammal evolution. It is also important in demonstrating Australia's Gondwanan links with South America in the form of similar fossils from the two continents. Geology Volcanic rock which has been estimated to be 40 million years old overlays the site. Therefore, the Murgon fossils must be older than this. The site is mostly clay which was laid down in a lake which formed in a volcanic crater. Fossil fauna The fossil fauna reported from Murgon is referred to as the Tingamarra fauna. The most common fossil at the site are ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Icaronycteris
''Icaronycteris'' is an extinct genus of microchiropteran (echolocating) bat that lived in the early Eocene, approximately , making it the earliest bat genus known from complete skeletons, and the earliest known bat from North America. Multiple exceptionally preserved specimens, among the best preserved bat fossils, are known from the Green River Formation of North America. The best known species is ''I. index.'' Fragmentary material from France has also been tentatively placed within ''Icaronycteris'' as the second species ''I. menui''. ''I. sigei'' is based on well-preserved fragments of dentaries and lower teeth found in Western India. In 2023, the species ''I. gunnelli'' also from the Green River Formation was distinguished from ''I. index'', and ''I. menui'' and ''I. sigei'' were proposed to be removed from the genus due to them not being closely related. Description ''Icaronycteris'' measured about long and had a wingspan of . ''Icaronycteris'' closely resembled mod ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Chiroptera
Bats are flying mammals of the order Chiroptera (). With their forelimbs adapted as wings, they are the only mammals capable of true and sustained flight. Bats are more agile in flight than most birds, flying with their very long spread-out digits covered with a thin membrane or patagium. The smallest bat, and arguably the smallest extant mammal, is Kitti's hog-nosed bat, which is in length, across the wings and in mass. The largest bats are the flying foxes, with the giant golden-crowned flying fox (''Acerodon jubatus'') reaching a weight of and having a wingspan of . The second largest order of mammals after rodents, bats comprise about 20% of all classified mammal species worldwide, with over 1,400 species. These were traditionally divided into two suborders: the largely fruit-eating megabats, and the echolocating microbats. But more recent evidence has supported dividing the order into Yinpterochiroptera and Yangochiroptera, with megabats as members of the for ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Eocene
The Eocene ( ) is a geological epoch (geology), epoch that lasted from about 56 to 33.9 million years ago (Ma). It is the second epoch of the Paleogene Period (geology), Period in the modern Cenozoic Era (geology), Era. The name ''Eocene'' comes from the Ancient Greek (''Ēṓs'', 'Eos, Dawn') and (''kainós'', "new") and refers to the "dawn" of modern ('new') fauna that appeared during the epoch.See: *Letter from William Whewell to Charles Lyell dated 31 January 1831 in: * From p. 55: "The period next antecedent we shall call Eocene, from ήως, aurora, and χαινος, recens, because the extremely small proportion of living species contained in these strata, indicates what may be considered the first commencement, or ''dawn'', of the existing state of the animate creation." The Eocene spans the time from the end of the Paleocene Epoch to the beginning of the Oligocene Epoch. The start of the Eocene is marked by a brief period in which the concentration of the carbon isoto ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Wyonycteris
''Wyonycteris'' is a genus of small mammals that existed in the late Paleocene and early Eocene Epoch (geology), epochs. The type species is ''Wyonycteris chalix'', which lived in Wyoming during the Clarkforkian North American land mammal age, North American Land Mammal Age of the Paleocene and was originally proposed to be an early form of insectivorous bat. Later re-examination of the material has put this alliance in doubt, and the genus has instead been proposed as belonging to the subfamily Placentidentinae, within the family Nyctitheriidae. Similar fossil material of the same time period found in Europe was later discovered and described as new species, ''Wyonycteris richardi''. Secord (2008) described the first known species of ''Wyonycteris'' from the Tiffanian North American land mammal age, NALMA, ''Wyonycteris galensis'' and ''W. microtis'', although the status of both species as members of ''Wyonycteris'' has been questioned. The two largest species, ''W. primitivus'' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Prehistoric Bat Genera
Prehistory, also called pre-literary history, is the period of human history between the first known use of stone tools by hominins million years ago and the beginning of recorded history with the invention of writing systems. The use of symbols, marks, and images appears very early among humans, but the earliest known writing systems appeared years ago. It took thousands of years for writing systems to be widely adopted, with writing having spread to almost all cultures by the 19th century. The end of prehistory therefore came at different times in different places, and the term is less often used in discussing societies where prehistory ended relatively recently. It is based on an old conception of history that without written records there could be no history. The most common conception today is that history is based on evidence, however the concept of prehistory hasn't been completely discarded. In the early Bronze Age, Sumer in Mesopotamia, the Indus Valley Civilis ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Eocene Bats
The Eocene ( ) is a geological epoch that lasted from about 56 to 33.9 million years ago (Ma). It is the second epoch of the Paleogene Period in the modern Cenozoic Era. The name ''Eocene'' comes from the Ancient Greek (''Ēṓs'', 'Dawn') and (''kainós'', "new") and refers to the "dawn" of modern ('new') fauna that appeared during the epoch.See: *Letter from William Whewell to Charles Lyell dated 31 January 1831 in: * From p. 55: "The period next antecedent we shall call Eocene, from ήως, aurora, and χαινος, recens, because the extremely small proportion of living species contained in these strata, indicates what may be considered the first commencement, or ''dawn'', of the existing state of the animate creation." The Eocene spans the time from the end of the Paleocene Epoch to the beginning of the Oligocene Epoch. The start of the Eocene is marked by a brief period in which the concentration of the carbon isotope 13C in the atmosphere was exceptionally low in comp ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Microchiropteran
Microbats constitute the suborder Microchiroptera within the order Chiroptera (bats). Bats have long been differentiated into Megachiroptera (megabats) and Microchiroptera, based on their size, the use of echolocation by the Microchiroptera and other features; molecular evidence suggests a somewhat different subdivision, as the microbats have been shown to be a paraphyletic group. Characteristics Microbats are long. Most microbats feed on insects, but some of the larger species hunt birds, lizards, frogs, smaller bats or even fish. Only three species of microbat feed on the blood of large mammals or birds ("vampire bats"); these bats live in South and Central America. Although most "Leaf-nose" microbats are fruit and nectar-eating, the name “leaf-nosed” isn't a designation meant to indicate the preferred diet among said variety. Three species follow the bloom of columnar cacti in northwest Mexico and the Southwest United States northward in the northern spring and then the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Crown Clade
In phylogenetics, the crown group or crown assemblage is a collection of species composed of the living representatives of the collection, the most recent common ancestor of the collection, and all descendants of the most recent common ancestor. It is thus a way of defining a clade, a group consisting of a species and all its extant or extinct descendants. For example, Neornithes (birds) can be defined as a crown group, which includes the most recent common ancestor of all modern birds, and all of its extant or extinct descendants. The concept was developed by Willi Hennig, the formulator of phylogenetic systematics, as a way of classifying living organisms relative to their extinct relatives in his "Die Stammesgeschichte der Insekten", and the "crown" and "stem" group terminology was coined by R. P. S. Jefferies in 1979. Though formulated in the 1970s, the term was not commonly used until its reintroduction in 2000 by Graham Budd and Sören Jensen. Contents of the crown gro ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Edentulous
Toothlessness or edentulism is the condition of having no teeth. In organisms that naturally have teeth, it is the result of tooth loss. Organisms that never possessed teeth can also be described as edentulous. Examples are the members of the former zoological classification order of '' Edentata'', which included anteaters and sloths, as they possess no anterior teeth and no or poorly developed posterior teeth. In naturally dentate species, edentulism is more than just the simple presence or absence of teeth. It is biochemically complex because the teeth, jaws, and oral mucosa are dynamic. Processes such as bone remodeling (loss and gain of bone tissue) in the jaws and inflammation of soft tissue in response to the oral microbiota are clinically important for edentulous people. For example, bone resorption in the jaw is frequently how the teeth were able to detach in the first place. The jaw in an edentulous area undergoes further resorption even after the teeth are gone; and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
