The Maggie Taylor's roundleaf bat (''Hipposideros maggietaylorae'') is a species of

bat 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 ...

in the family

Hipposideridae The Hipposideridae are a family (biology), family of bats commonly known as the Old World leaf-nosed bats. While it has often been seen as a subfamily, Hipposiderinae, of the family Rhinolophidae, it is now more generally classified as its own fa ...

. It is found in West Papua (

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, ...

) and

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 ...

Taxonomy and etymology

It was described as a new species in 1981 by James Dale Smith and J. Edwards Hill. 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 in 1979 in Lengmebung Cave on New Ireland Island. The

eponym An eponym is a noun after which or for which someone or something is, or is believed to be, named. Adjectives derived from the word ''eponym'' include ''eponymous'' and ''eponymic''. Eponyms are commonly used for time periods, places, innovati ...

for the

species name In taxonomy, binomial nomenclature ("two-term naming system"), also called binary nomenclature, is a formal system of naming species of living things by giving each a name composed of two parts, both of which use Latin grammatical forms, altho ...

"''maggietaylorae''" is Margaret (Maggie) Taylor. Taylor had financed Smith's research expedition to 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 ...

in 1979.

Description

It has a forearm length of . It has dense, woolly fur that is shorter on the head and neck than the rest of the body. Its back fur is grayish brown, while its belly fur is grayish white. It has a

dental formula Dentition pertains to the development of teeth and their arrangement in the mouth. In particular, it is the characteristic arrangement, kind, and number of teeth in a given species at a given age. That is, the number, type, and morpho-physiology ...

of for a total of 30 teeth.

Range and habitat

It is found on the island of

New Guinea New Guinea (; Hiri Motu: ''Niu Gini''; , fossilized , also known as Papua or historically ) is the List of islands by area, world's second-largest island, with an area of . Located in Melanesia in the southwestern Pacific Ocean, the island is ...

(both the

n and the

n sides) as well as several islands of the Bismarck Archipelago of Papua New Guinea. It has been documented at elevations up to above sea level.

Conservation

As of 2021, it is evaluated as a

least-concern species A least-concern species is a species that has been evaluated and categorized by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) as not being a focus of wildlife conservation because the specific species is still plentiful in the wil ...

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 ...

. No major threats to this species have been identified.

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q1767744 Hipposideros Bats of Oceania Mammals of Papua New Guinea Mammals of Western New Guinea Mammals described in 1981 Taxa named by John Edwards Hill Taxonomy articles created by Polbot Bats of Southeast Asia Bats of New Guinea