''Taphozous'' is a genus of the family
Emballonuridae
Emballonuridae is a family of microbats, many of which are referred to as sac-winged or sheath-tailed bats. They are widely distributed in tropical and subtropical regions around the world. The earliest fossil records are from the Eocene.
Desc ...
. The wide distribution of the genus includes several regions of Australia, Indonesia,
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 ...
and Africa. ''Taphozous'' comes from the Greek τάφος, meaning "a tomb". The common names for species include variants on sac-winged, sheathtail, or tomb bats.
The genus is the type for a grouping within the family, subfamily
Taphozoinae,
and an arrangement that describes two subgenera is as follows:
subgenus ''Taphozous'' (''Liponycteris'')
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Hamilton's tomb bat (''Taphozous hamiltoni'')
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Naked-rumped tomb bat (''Taphozous nudiventris'')
subgenus ''Taphozous'' (''Taphozous''),
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Indonesian tomb bat (''Taphozous achates'')
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Coastal sheath-tailed bat (''Taphozous australis'')
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Common sheath-tailed bat (''Taphozous georgianus'')
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Hildegarde's tomb bat (''Taphozous hildegardeae'')
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Hill's sheath-tailed bat
Hill's sheath-tailed bat (''Taphozous hilli'') is a bat of the family Emballonuridae. They are found in the deserts of central Australia.
Taxonomy
The description of the species was published by Darrell Kitchener in 1980, reclassifying bats th ...
(''Taphozous hilli'')
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Arnhem sheath-tailed bat (''Taphozous kapalgensis'')
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Long-winged tomb bat (''Taphozous longimanus'')
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Mauritian tomb bat (''Taphozous mauritianus'')
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Black-bearded tomb bat (''Taphozous melanopogon'')
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Egyptian tomb bat (''Taphozous perforatus'')
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Theobald's tomb bat (''Taphozous theobaldi'')
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Troughton's sheath-tailed bat (''Taphozous troughtoni'')
The diversity of some species are recognised as subspecies. Some populations are poorly known, the species ''Taphozous hilli'' was not recognised amongst the population of the more common species ''Taphozous georgianus'' until 1980.
References
External links
Bat genera
Taxa named by Étienne Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire
Taxonomy articles created by Polbot
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