Semon's leaf-nosed bat or Semon's roundleaf bat (''Hipposideros semoni'') 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 ...

.Van Dyke, S. and Strahan, R. (eds.) (2008) ''The Mammals of Australia'', Third Edition, New Holland / Queensland Museum, Brisbane It is found in

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising mainland Australia, the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and list of islands of Australia, numerous smaller isl ...

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 1903 by German zoologist

Paul Matschie file: Paul Matschie (BerlLeben 1901-09).JPG, Paul Matschie Paul Matschie (11 August 1861, Brandenburg an der Havel – 7 March 1926, Friedenau) was a German zoologist. He studied mathematics and natural sciences at the Universities of Universi ...

. The eponym 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 ...

"''semoni''" was fellow German zoologist

Richard Semon Richard Wolfgang Semon (22 August 1859, in Berlin – 27 December 1918, in Munich) was a German zoologist, explorer, evolutionary biologist and memory researcher who believed in the inheritance of acquired characteristics and applied this to soci ...

. Semon's research voyage to Australia procured 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 ...

that Matschie used to describe the new species.

Description

Its head and body is long, while its wingspan is approximately . Individuals weigh . It has long, narrow ears with sharply pointed tips. Its fur is a dark, smoky gray in color, with individual hairs relatively long.

Biology and ecology

It is

nocturnal Nocturnality is a ethology, behavior in some non-human animals characterized by being active during the night and sleeping during the day. The common adjective is "nocturnal", versus diurnality, diurnal meaning the opposite. Nocturnal creatur ...

, roosting in sheltered places during the day such as abandoned mines, caves, hollow trees, and rock fissures. It will roost singly or in small colonies. It is

insectivorous A robber fly eating a hoverfly An insectivore is a carnivorous animal or plant which eats insects. An alternative term is entomophage, which can also refer to the human practice of eating insects. The first vertebrate insectivores we ...

, preying on

arthropod Arthropods ( ) are invertebrates in the phylum Arthropoda. They possess an arthropod exoskeleton, exoskeleton with a cuticle made of chitin, often Mineralization (biology), mineralised with calcium carbonate, a body with differentiated (Metam ...

s such as spiders, beetles, and moths. While foraging, it flies close to the ground, at heights less than . It is possibly a prey species of the

ghost bat The ghost bat (''Macroderma gigas'') is a species of bat found in northern Australia. The species is the only Australian bat that preys on large vertebrates – birds, reptiles and other mammals – which they detect using acute sight and heari ...

, which is known to consume other bat species in the family

Conservation

It is currently evaluated as

least concern 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 ...

—its lowest conservation priority. However, it has a more urgent conservation status in Australia.

Queensland Queensland ( , commonly abbreviated as Qld) is a States and territories of Australia, state in northeastern Australia, and is the second-largest and third-most populous state in Australia. It is bordered by the Northern Territory, South Austr ...

listed it as endangered under the

Nature Conservation Act 1992 The ''Nature Conservation Act 1992'' is an act of the Parliament of Queensland, Australia, that, together with subordinate legislation, provides for the legislative protection of Queensland's threatened biota. As originally published, it prov ...

, while nationally it is listed as vulnerable under the

Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999 The ''Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999'' (Cth) is an Act of the Parliament of Australia that provides a framework for protection of the Australian environment, including its biodiversity and its natural and cult ...

. Conservation and management actions recommended in Australia include preventing roost disturbance and destruction. Additionally, there is a stated need to determine the extent of the species range in Australia, as well as to assess what its requirements are for acceptable roosts.

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q1768789 Hipposideros Bats of Australia Bats of Oceania Mammals of Papua New Guinea Mammals of Queensland Nature Conservation Act endangered biota EPBC Act vulnerable biota Mammals described in 1903 Taxa named by Paul Matschie Taxonomy articles created by Polbot Bats of New Guinea