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Northern short-tailed bat
Mystacina tuberculata aupourica
Central short-tailed bat
Mystacina tuberculata rhyacobia
Southern short-tailed bat
Mystacina tuberculata tuberculata |
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The very odd short-tailed bat Mystacina tuberculata is a truly
unique animal. The only remaining species of the Mystacinidae family was once abundant
in the former near continuous tract of old growth forest of the central North Island, and
other locations throughout New Zealand, but is now reduced to 50,000 bats scattered
in 13 known populations.
The Central subspecies Mystacina tuberculata rhyacobia is the most predominant, with seven North Island populations at Rangataua, Pureora, Kaimanawa, Whirinaki and Urewera, and Waitaanga and Waitotara in the Taranaki region containing a total of about 40,000 bats. |
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Another 4 mainland locations each have only a few hundred
bats which are at risk of extinction. There are good sized populations on Little Barrier Island
in the Hauraki Gulf, and Codfish Island.
 Northern short-tailed bat, Omahuta State Forest, Northland. Photo: Dick Veitch, Crown Copyright © Dept of Conservation 1975
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The Northern, or kauri forest short-tailed bat Mystacina tuberculata aupourica, is only at two Northland sites and on Little Barrier Island in the Hauraki Gulf.
The Southern subspecies Mystacina tuberculata tuberculata is limited to Codfish/Whenua Hou Island offshore from Stewart Island, Eglinton in the Fiordland area, and northwest Nelson.
An isolated colony of 300 short-tailed bats was discovered in the late 1990s in the Waiohine Valley of Tararua Forest Park. Waiohine bats are genetically distinct, thought to be related to the Central and South Island subspecies. They once populated beech forests when the North and South Islands were connected, and became isolated during a period of glaciation and volcanic activity 90,000 years ago.
Twenty Waiohine pups born from captured pregnant mothers have been released on Kapiti
Island in an attempt to overcome the homing instinct in bats, to establish a second safe population in a predator-free habitat. |
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"Short-tailed bats are the world's most terrestrial bats and represent the bat family's attempt to produce a mouse"
(New Zealand as an archipelago: An international perspective, Jared Diamond, 1990) |
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Mystacina tuberculata is listed as 'vulnerable' on the 2004 IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. The Northern and Southern subspecies are 'nationally endangered', and the Central subspecies is 'range restricted' in the New Zealand Threatened Species classification.
Short-tailed bats are indeed very unusual creatures. In the prehuman New Zealand ecology, they did the job of mice in a normal mammalian ecology, and developed habits typical of so many of New Zealand's flightless and poor flying birds.
The short-tailed bat is robust and stocky, but weighs only 11 to 15 grams. Its appearance is quite unusual with its unproportionally large ears, from which a narrow and pointed tragus
protrudes. |
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The scientific name "tuberculata" is derived from the short-tailed bat's strange primitive looking, double tubular nose that extends over its' lips.
Southern short-tailed bat, Codfish Island.
Photo: B.D. Lloyd, Crown Copyright © Dept of Conservation
View slideshow of 5 larger images |
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Most bats catch their food while in flight, however, the short-tailed bat spends a lot of
time on the forest floor searching for food. It is the only bat that scrambles over the ground
as well as it flies, however, it is a relatively slow flier, and seldom gets higher than
three metres off the ground.
Mystacina are unique in their ability to fold their wings under a leathery membrane
when grounded. This enables the use of their fore arms as front legs as they run through
burrows and the forest floor as eagerly as a mouse. The short tail is free of the wing membrane.
The ability to tuck wings out of harms way also allows Mystacina to burrow into
litter and humus on the forest floor for food, and into rotten logs and trees to carve out
roosts and tunnels.
The short-tailed bat's thumb has a large, unusually well developed claw with a small talon.
This is unique amongst the smaller bats. Claws of the feet have talons as well, which helps
agility on the ground, but also allows it to climb tree trunks and walk on branches in search
of food, such as around epiphytes on kauri trees.
As found from bats in captivity, it will eat practically anything. A normal diet includes
fruit, nectar, pollen and insects. It is one of the few bat species that eat plant matter.
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Above: Central short-tailed bat Mystacina tuberculata rhyacobia cluster, Ohakune, North Island, 1977. Photo B.D. Lloyd, Crown Copyright © Department of Conservation
 View 5 larger images
Other bat pages:
Mammals
Greater short-tailed bat
Long-tailed bat
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The world's sole survivor of an ancient bat lineage .....
The short-tailed bat Mystacina tuberculata, known also as the New Zealand lesser
short-tailed bat, is the sole survivor of an ancient lineage. It is the only remaining
species in the family Mystacinidae which is presently endemic to New Zealand.
The short-tailed bat diverged from other species early in the evolution of bats, between 50 and 60 million years ago.
The Mystacinidae family is one of four in the bat super family Noctilionoidea. The super family also includes the Noctilionoidae, Mormoopidae and Phyllostomidae families which have long been recognized as having a close relationship. With the exception of Mystacina, Noctilionoidea is restricted to central and south America.
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"DNA-DNA hybridisation indicates Mystacina is the most basal group in the Noctilionoidea"
(Kirsch et al. 1998; Kirsch & Lloyd 1998) |
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The unique physical features of Mystacina have puzzled systemic biologists for the last century. Mystacinidae has only recently been associated with Noctilionidae, Mormoopidae and Phyllostomidae. It was historically placed with Verspertilionidae and Molossidae.
Morphological data has been inconclusive, but immunological data (Pierson 1986), and DNA data (Kirsch et al, Kennedy 1999) provide strong support for the current placement, going as far as suggesting that Mystacina is the sister group of all noctilionoids (Kirsch et al).
The previous conclusion of an origin of Mystacina in South America is overturned by its definition as a sister taxa of the genus Icarops (Hand et al 1998), which includes three species from fossils of the early Miocene in Northern Australia. It is probable that Mystacina dispersed to New Zealand from Australia in the late Oligocene or early Miocene about 30 million years ago.
New Zealand was closer to Australia in the late Oligocene, and was emerging from a long period as a submerged, drowned continent. Historically most dispersals to New Zealand have been from Australia, at times assisted by island hopping, and by prevailing winds.
The genetic link of Mystacina to Icarops and the probability of dispersal across the Tasman Sea does not preclude a relationship to Noctilionoidea, however, it must be presumed that members of this group became extinct in Australia, but continued in South America. |
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Above: Northern short-tailed bat Mystacina tuberculata aupourica, Little Barrier Island, 1974. Photo J.L. Kendrick, Crown Copyright © Department of Conservation
View 5 larger images |
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Short-tailed bats pollinate the flowers of woodrose Dactylanthus taylori, a rare
parasitic plant that grows on tree roots. This saprophytic angiosperm
is without photosynthetic tissues, and is only noticeable above the litter of the forest
floor by the flower. Woodrose is a high pollen producer, and the only known
flower that is pollinated by bats on the ground.
Mystacinids normally roost, on there own or communally, in hollow trees and tunnels they
excavate in rotten wood. At Rangataua Forest on the lower slopes of Mt Ruapehu, where
there are 7,000 bats, 5,500 may roost in one tree.
Their body temperature cools when they are roosting. In cold and inclement weather
they stay indoors, going into a 'torpor', and waking when the weather gets warmer. They
do not hibernate, and have been known to forage on cold winter nights.
Short-tailed bats breed once a year from February to April, when the females form a nursery
roost, and the males roost separately. They are the only lek breeding microchiropteran.
Males sing throughout the night from strategic trees to attract females, with sounds that
can be partly heard by humans. Females travel as far as 10km to visit lekking males.
Only one pup is born in a season. Pups fly after 4-6 weeks, and grow to adult size
within 8-12 weeks.
Mystacina bats were preyed upon by the now extinct laughing owl Sceloglaux
albifacies. Today they are the prey of morepork Ninox novaeseelandiae and to a
lesser extent the New Zealand falcon Falco novaeseelandiae. The introduced predators
are rats and ferile cats.
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