Biologist at Field discovers rare bat

More than a century after biologists discovered the only known sucker-footed bat species, a Field Museum biologist working in Madagascar has found a second variety that relies on the same strange means of locomotion, using flat suction pads to climb up smooth leaves.

The new bat, which museum biologist Steven Goodman found by the thousands, was hiding in plain view amid the farms and grazing lands of the vast island.

The 19th and 20th Century biologists who described the first species of sucker-footed bats called them "exceedingly rare and remarkable." While the new bat species is not especially rare, its strategy for clinging to leaves is virtually unknown among mammals.

Among bats, the only other varieties that use suckers are the "disk-winged" bats of Central and South America, which have pads in a different place.

"If we already had described 100 other species like this and found one more, it would be less interesting," said Link Olson, curator of mammals at the University of Alaska Museum in Fairbanks.

Goodman's paper on the new bat appears in the current issue of the journal Mammalian Biology.

Before the new discovery, the other sucker-footed bat in Madagascar was the sole member of its biological "family"--a technical distinction, but one that experts say is extremely unusual among mammals.

"Most families have dozens or thousands of species," said Larry Heaney, curator of mammals at the Field Museum. "To be placed as the only species in a family means there are no known species that shared an ancestor with that animal in a long time."

Goodman and a team of researchers from Madagascar found the new bat through painstaking biological surveys. Goodman was in Madagascar and could not be reached for comment Friday, but his colleagues said such surveys typically consist of first-hand observations as well as catching bats with nets hung along their flying routes.

source: chicagotribune.com