The Yinpterochiroptera (or Pteropodiformes) is a suborder of the

Chiroptera Bats are mammals of the order Chiroptera.''cheir'', "hand" and πτερόν''pteron'', "wing". 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 bir ...

, which includes taxa formerly known as

megabat Megabats constitute the family Pteropodidae of the order Chiroptera ( bats). They are also called fruit bats, Old World fruit bats, or—especially the genera ''Acerodon'' and '' Pteropus''— flying foxes. They are the only member of the s ...

s and five of the microbat families: Rhinopomatidae, Rhinolophidae, Hipposideridae, Craseonycteridae, and

Megadermatidae Megadermatidae, or false vampire bats, are a family of bats found from central Africa, eastwards through southern Asia, and into Australia. They are relatively large bats, ranging from 6.5 cm to 14 cm in head-body length. They have la ...

. This suborder is primarily based on molecular genetics data. This proposal challenged the traditional view that

megabats Megabats constitute the family Pteropodidae of the order Chiroptera ( bats). They are also called fruit bats, Old World fruit bats, or—especially the genera ''Acerodon'' and ''Pteropus''—flying foxes. They are the only member of the sup ...

and

microbats 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 an ...

form

monophyletic In cladistics for a group of organisms, monophyly is the condition of being a clade—that is, a group of taxa composed only of a common ancestor (or more precisely an ancestral population) and all of its lineal descendants. Monophyletic gr ...

groups of bats. Further studies are being conducted, using both molecular and morphological

cladistic Cladistics (; ) is an approach to biological classification in which organisms are categorized in groups ("clades") based on hypotheses of most recent common ancestry. The evidence for hypothesized relationships is typically shared derived char ...

methodology, to assess its merit. The term Yinpterochiroptera is constructed from the words Pteropodidae (the family of megabats) and Yinochiroptera (a term proposed in 1984 by Karl F. Koopman to refer to certain families of microbats). Recent studies using transcriptome data have found strong support for the Yinpterochiroptera-Yangochiroptera classification system. Researchers have created a relaxed molecular clock that estimates the divergence between Yinpterochiroptera and Yangochiroptera around 63 million years ago. The most recent common ancestor of Yinpterochiroptera, corresponding to the split between Rhinolophoidea and Pteropodidae (Old World Fruit bats), is estimated to have occurred 60 million years ago. The first appearance of the term Yinpterochiroptera was in 2001, in an article by Mark Springer and colleagues. As an alternative to the subordinal names Yinpterochiroptera and

Yangochiroptera Yangochiroptera, or Vespertilioniformes, is a suborder of Chiroptera that includes most of the microbat families, except the Rhinopomatidae, Rhinolophidae, Hipposideridae, and Megadermatidae. These other families, plus the megabats, are seen as ...

, some researchers use the terms Pteropodiformes and Vespertilioniformes, basing the names on the oldest valid genus description in each group, ''

Pteropus ''Pteropus'' (suborder Yinpterochiroptera) is a genus of megabats which are among the largest bats in the world. They are commonly known as fruit bats or flying foxes, among other colloquial names. They live in South Asia, Southeast Asia, Aust ...

'' and '' Vespertilio''. Under this new proposed nomenclature, Pteropodiformes is the suborder that would replace Yinpterochiroptera.

Classification

Suborder Yinpterochiroptera (Pteropodiformes) * Family Craseonycteridae (Kitti's hog-nosed bat) * Family Hipposideridae (Old World leaf-nosed bats) * Family

(false vampires) *Family Pteropodidae (megabats) *Family Rhinolophidae (horseshoe bats) *Family Rhinopomatidae (mouse-tailed bats)

References

* * {{Taxonbar, from1=Q2191450, from2=Q25404319 Bat taxonomy Mammal suborders