The Bismarck trumpet-eared bat (''Kerivoula myrella''), also known as the Manus Island woolly bat, is a species of

vesper bat Vespertilionidae is a family of microbats, of the order Chiroptera, flying, insect-eating mammals variously described as the common, vesper, or simple nosed bats. The vespertilionid family is the most diverse and widely distributed of bat famili ...

in the family

Vespertilionidae Vespertilionidae is a family of microbats, of the order Chiroptera, flying, insect-eating mammals variously described as the common, vesper, or simple nosed bats. The vespertilionid family is the most diverse and widely distributed of bat familie ...

. It is found in subtropical or tropical dry

forest A forest is an ecosystem characterized by a dense ecological community, community of trees. Hundreds of definitions of forest are used throughout the world, incorporating factors such as tree density, tree height, land use, legal standing, ...

Taxonomy

The Bismarck trumpet-eared bat was described as a new species in 1914 by British mammalogist

Oldfield Thomas Michael Rogers Oldfield Thomas (21 February 1858 – 16 June 1929) was a British zoologist. Career Thomas worked at the Natural History Museum, London, Natural History Museum on mammals, describing about 2,000 new species and subspecies for ...

. The

holotype A holotype (Latin: ''holotypus'') is a single physical example (or illustration) of an organism used when the species (or lower-ranked taxon) was formally described. It is either the single such physical example (or illustration) or one of s ...

had been collected on

Manus Island Manus Island is part of Manus Province in northern Papua New Guinea and is the largest of the Admiralty Islands. It is the fifth-largest island in Papua New Guinea, with an area of , measuring around . Manus Island is covered in rugged jungles w ...

, which is part of the

Bismarck Archipelago The Bismarck Archipelago (, ) is a group of islands off the northeastern coast of New Guinea in the western Pacific Ocean and is part of the Islands Region of Papua New Guinea. Its area is about . History The first inhabitants of the archipela ...

Description

Overall, the Bismarck trumpet-eared bat is similar in appearance to Hardwicke's woolly bat. It has a forearm length of .

Biology and ecology

It is an echolocating species with

frequency modulation Frequency modulation (FM) is a signal modulation technique used in electronic communication, originally for transmitting messages with a radio wave. In frequency modulation a carrier wave is varied in its instantaneous frequency in proporti ...

of its calls. The calls are broadband, with very slight curvature of the downward sweep of call frequencies. Its echolocation calls have low energy, meaning that it is unlikely to be detected by acoustic detectors unless it passes close to the device's microphone.

Range and habitat

It is found in

Papua New Guinea Papua New Guinea, officially the Independent State of Papua New Guinea, is an island country in Oceania that comprises the eastern half of the island of New Guinea and offshore islands in Melanesia, a region of the southwestern Pacific Ocean n ...

, though its range may also include

Indonesia Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania, between the Indian Ocean, Indian and Pacific Ocean, Pacific oceans. Comprising over List of islands of Indonesia, 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, ...

. It has been documented at a range of above sea level.

Conservation

As of 2008, it is evaluated as a Vulnerable species by the

IUCN The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) is an international organization working in the field of nature conservation and sustainable use of natural resources. Founded in 1948, IUCN has become the global authority on the status ...

. It meets the criteria for this designation regarding its population size, ecological requirements, and threats it may be facing.

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q303760 Kerivoulinae Bats of Oceania Bats of Indonesia Mammals of Papua New Guinea Mammals of Western New Guinea Bismarck Archipelago Vulnerable fauna of Oceania Taxonomy articles created by Polbot Taxa named by Oldfield Thomas Mammals described in 1914 Bats of New Guinea