By Susan Milius
Bats, better known for their mousy looks, can have a colorful side. A new species, discovered when two bats were caught at an abandoned miners’ tunnel in western Africa, sports showy swathes of orange fur.
The new finds “are just gorgeous,” says mammalogist Nancy Simmons of the American Museum of Natural History in New York City. Orange fur on the bats’ backs contrasts with black sections of wing membranes.
But that’s not what sets this bat apart: Three other Myotis species from the continent are similarly flashy. Rather less visible traits, from details of hidden striping in its fur to its echolocation calls, peg Myotis nimbaensis as something unusual, Simmons and colleagues report online January 13 in American Museum Novitates.
The new species was discovered the old-fashioned way — out in a remote forest at night with keen eyes studying real animals. That’s not so common nowadays in the age of sensitive genetic tools, Simmons says. Many of the 20 or so new bat species typically named every year are detected through genetic analyses of museum specimen lookalikes. M. nimbaensis differs genetically from near kin — about as much as humans differ from gorillas. Differences also show up in teeth as well as other anatomy.