Pteropodidae

Megabats constitute the family Pteropodidae of the order Chiroptera. They are also called fruit bats, Old World fruit bats, or—especially the genera Acerodon and Pteropus—flying foxes. They are the only member of the superfamily Pteropodoidea, which is one of two superfamilies in the suborder Yinpterochiroptera. Internal divisions of Pteropodidae have varied since subfamilies were first proposed in 1917. From three subfamilies in the 1917 classification, six are now recognized, along with various tribes. As of 2018, 197 species of megabat had been described.

Pteropodidae

Giles Laurent · CC BY-SA 4.0 · via Wikipedia/Commons. May be a photograph of a specimen, or an artist’s reconstruction — an interpretation of a skeleton, since colour and soft tissue are almost never preserved.

On record

Recorded, not inferred
Also called
fruit batPBDB
Sits inside
YinpterochiropteraPBDB
Diet
herbivore, insectivorePBDB
Life habit
volantPBDB, for Chiroptera
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Chiroptera

Time the record covers

At least 33 million years on record.

The record covers at least 33.9 Mya to 11.7 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 37.71 Mya to 0 Mya.

Eocene — about 1 of 50 occurrencesEoceneOligocene — about 0 of 50 occurrencesMiocene — about 0 of 50 occurrencesPliocene — about 4 of 50 occurrencesPleistocene — about 10 of 50 occurrences38–37 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences37–36 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences36–35 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences35–33 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences6.4–5.1 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences5.1–3.8 Mya — about 2 occurrences3.8–2.6 Mya — about 1 occurrence2.6–1.3 Mya — about 1 occurrence1.3–0 Mya — about 43 occurrences33.9 Mya11.7 ka38.5 Mya0 Mya

50 occurrences of Pteropodidae on record. The Paleobiology Database records this as a living group. Bar height is expected occurrences, not a count: each fossil is spread across the span it is dated to, so a tall narrow bar means tight dating and a low wide one means loose.

When

50 occurrences

These are dates about fossils, not the animal: the record can only begin after it arose and end before it died out, so either end may reach further. Shares are expected occurrences: a fossil dated to a span is counted partly in each period it straddles. More on what this infers.

Found in

3 formations

Kanapoi — 2.37°N, 36.08°EShungura — 5.06°N, 36.03°EKrabi Basin B2 — 7.97°N, 99.06°E

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The named rock units Pteropodidae has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 45 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Found in the same rock

505 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 40 sites for Pteropodidae, and this reads all of them. The number is how many of those sites it was catalogued from too. The 24 sharing the most are listed.

This is not a list of everything alive at the time. It is only what has come out of the same ground as this animal and been written down.

Entered from

18 references

Each of the 50 occurrences read was entered from one of these publications, ordered by how many each accounts for. This is not a search for papers mentioning the name. 6 further references are not listed. Entries link to doi.org where the Paleobiology Database holds an identifier, and to its own record where it does not. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.

Media and terms

Media content1

Picture of Pteropodidae

Credit
Giles Laurent
Licence
CC BY-SA 4.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Pteropodidae was found in Sketchfab.

Smithsonian Open Access and MorphoSource were not reached for this taxon, so this list is what the others held rather than everything there is.

The description on this site

Licence
CC BY-SA 4.0

This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.

Keep going

What may have been alongside itYinpterochiroptera through timeThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Gray 1821