Common Big-eared Bat

Common Big-eared Bat
Common Big-eared Bat
Conservation status
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Mammalia
Order: Chiroptera
Family: Phyllostomidae
Genus: Micronycteris
Species: M. microtis
Binomial name
Micronycteris microtis
Miller, 1898

The Common Big-eared Bat, Micronycteris microtis, is a bat species from South and Central America. It is a neotropical leaf-nosed bat (a member of the family Phyllostomidae).

Recent research has demonstrated this bat's amazing ability to find motionless food within clutter. Echolocating bats discriminate between background and prey based on glints or Doppler shifts in the echo induced by the (wing-)movements of the prey, but M. microtis can detect completely motionless prey. M. microtis shares both the leaf-nose formation and the trait of sound emission through the nostrils with all Phyllostomidae, but its behavior is understood to be unique: M. microtis is able to discriminate ecologically relevant stimuli within an extremely complex cluttered sonic environment.

The echolocation call of M. microtis is a broad band multi-harmonic FM sweep with most energy in the second harmonic between 95 and 75 kHz, i.e. quite similar to that of Macrophyllum macrophyllum, although presumably of lower intensity.

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