Taphozous

Taphozous is a genus of the family Emballonuridae. The wide distribution of the genus includes several regions of Australia, Indonesia, Papua New Guinea and Africa. Taphozous comes from the Greek τάφος, meaning "a tomb". The common names for species include variants on sac-winged, sheathtail, or tomb bats.

Taphozous

Jenis Patel · 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
Sits inside
EmballonuridaePBDB
Diet
insectivorePBDB, for Emballonuridae
Life habit
volantPBDB, for Emballonuridae
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Emballonuridae

Time the record covers

At least 15 million years on record.

The record covers at least 15.98 Mya to 11.7 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 23.04 Mya to 0 Mya.

Oligocene — about 0 of 7 occurrencesMiocene — about 3 of 7 occurrencesMiocenePliocene — about 1 of 7 occurrencesPliocenePleistocene — about 1 of 7 occurrencesPleistocene24–23 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences23–22 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences22–21 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences21–20 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences20–20 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences20–19 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences19–18 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences18–17 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences17–16 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences16–16 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences16–15 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences15–14 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences14–13 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences13–13 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences13–12 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences12–11 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences3.9–3.1 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences3.1–2.4 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences2.4–1.6 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences785 ka–0 Mya — about 2 occurrences15.98 Mya11.7 ka23.5 Mya0 Mya

7 occurrences of Taphozous on record, most of them in the Miocene. 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

7 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

1 formation

Shungura — 5.08°N, 36.03°E

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The named rock units Taphozous has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 5 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Taphozous and its relatives

Miocene

Where Taphozous and its relatives were recorded in the Miocene.

Found in the same rock

243 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 7 sites for Taphozous, 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

7 references

Each of the 7 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. 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 Taphozous

Credit
Jenis Patel
Licence
CC BY-SA 4.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Taphozous 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 itEmballonuridae through timeFormations of the MioceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Geoffroy 1818