Hipposideros besaoka
| Hipposideros besaoka | |
|---|---|
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| Upper mandible | |
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Extinct
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| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Mammalia |
| Order: | Chiroptera |
| Family: | Hipposideridae |
| Genus: | Hipposideros |
| Species: | †H. besaoka |
| Binomial name | |
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Hipposideros besaoka Samonds, 2007 |
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Hipposideros besaoka is an extinct bat from Madagascar in the genus Hipposideros. It is known from numerous jaws and teeth, which were collected in a cave at Anjohibe in 1996 and described as a new species in 2007. The site where H. besaoka was found is at most 10,000 years old; other parts of the cave have yielded H. commersoni, a living species of Hipposideros from Madagascar, and some material that is distinct from both species. H. besaoka was larger than H. commersoni, making it the largest insectivorous bat of Madagascar, and had broader molars and a more robust lower jaw. As usual in Hipposideros, the second upper premolar is small and displaced from the toothrow, and the second lower premolar is large.
In 1996, a team led by biologist David Burney collected breccias containing bats and other animals from the cave of Anjohibe in northwestern Madagascar. The bats in the sample were described by Karen Samonds (previously Irwin) in her 2006 Ph.D. dissertation and a 2007 paper. She found several living species in addition to two extinct ones, Triaenops goodmani and Hipposideros besaoka, that she described as new.Hipposideros, the genus to which H. besaoka is assigned, contains the living species Hipposideros commersoni from Madagascar, among many others. The specific name besaoka is the Malagasy for "big chin". The material of H. besaoka is from locality TW-10 within the cave and is about 10,000 years old or younger. A cladistic analysis using morphological data suggests that H. besaoka is most closely related to the mainland African H. gigas and H. vittatus, previously included in H. commersoni, and somewhat more distantly to H. commersoni itself.
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