Icarops
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Icarops Temporal range: Late Oligocene to Early Miocene |
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| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Mammalia |
| Order: | Chiroptera |
| Family: | Mystacinidae |
| Genus: |
†Icarops Hand et al., 1998 |
| Species | |
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Icarops is an extinct genus of Mystacinidae bats with three described species. The genus is known from fossils found at Riversleigh, north-western Queensland, and Bullock Creek, Northern Territories, Australia. The fossils date from the late Oligocene to early Miocene.
The name is derived "From Icarus, the mythological Greek who flew towards the sun, in reference to the ancient mystacinid that flew eastwards from Australia to New Zealand."
Like its modern relatives, the Mystacina Short-Tailed bats, Icarops shows adaptations to foraging on the ground. This is in spite of occurring alongside various terrestrial tetrapods, including other mammals such as marsupials and monotremes. This shows that the terrestrial habits of mystacines did not evolve due to lack of competition with other mammals in New Zealand, predating the island's colonisation and having evolved on mainland Australia.
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