Vielasia is an extinct genus of bats from the Early Eocene of Europe. They are known from hundreds of specimens, some of them unusually complete, from a 50 million-year-old cave deposit in southern France and are the oldest bats definitively known to have lived in caves. The only known species is estimated to have weighed about 18.94 g (0.668 oz), compared with a median value of 13.8 g (0.49 oz) for living bat species. It is regarded as closely related to, but outside, the clade of all living bats, but already shared many features with modern species. For example, some details of the skeleton, including the shape and size of the inner ear canal, indicate that it was capable of both powered flight and echolocation, and that it probably ate flying insects.[1]

Vielasia
Temporal range: Early Eocene
Scientific classification Edit this classification
Domain: Eukaryota
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Mammalia
Order: Chiroptera
Genus: Vielasia
Hand, Maugoust, Beck, & Orliac, 2023
Type species
Vielasia sigei
Hand, Maugoust, Beck, & Orliac, 2023
Species
  • V. sigei

References

edit
  1. ^ Hand, S.J.; Maugoust, J.; et al. (November 2023). "A 50-million-year-old, three-dimensionally preserved bat skull supports an early origin for modern echolocation". Current Biology. 33 (21): 4624–4640. doi:10.1016/j.cub.2023.09.043. hdl:1959.4/unsworks_84767.