White-striped Free-tailed Bat

About the White-striped Free-tailed Bat

The white-striped free-tailed bat (Austronomus australis) is a species of bat in the family Molossidae. Its echolocation calls are audible to humans, which is a characteristic found in only a few microbat species. The species was formerly classified as Tadarida australis.

The first description of the species was published in 1838 by John Edward Gray, in a review of material at the British Museum of Natural History. The author noted the source of the specimen, a skin and skull, as New South Wales and placed it with the genus Molossus. When providing a description in Furred Animals of Australia, Ellis Troughton suggested that the specimen examined by Gray was obtained at Camden, a property owned by John Macarthur. Troughton first proposed the species be distinguished as a monotypic genus Austronomus, this arrangement was eventually resurrected when the taxon was separated from the previously accepted placement in the widespread genus Tadarida.

Koopman included these species in Tadarida with T. kuboriensis as a subspecies of T. australis. Gregorin and Cirranello found that these two species formed a clade distinct from other Tadarida, differing in eight morphological characters... Wikipedia →