Cantor's Roundleaf Bat

About this species

Diet

Insects

Habitat

Small colonies in old buildings and rock or wall crevices

Range

Mainland and island Southeast Asia, including Indonesia

Cantor’s roundleaf bat is a small insect-eating hipposiderid named for the nineteenth-century zoologist Theodore Edward Cantor. Like other roundleaf bats, it carries a rounded leaf-like structure around the nostrils that helps shape echolocation calls. A Malaysian specimen was documented with a gland immediately behind the noseleaf, visible when the sides were pressed. The species belongs to the bicolor species group, although recent revision has separated some South Asian populations formerly placed under the same name (Khan et al.; Srinivasulu et al. 2025).

The geographic accounts opened list the species from mainland and island Southeast Asia, including Indonesia, while a recent taxonomic revision means older South Asian records need reassessment. Species profiles describe roosts in old buildings, among rocks and in cracks in walls, generally in very small colonies, with insects as food. These notes are species-wide; no source opened documented a particular Sulawesi colony or supplied reliable reproductive measurements, so neither local abundance nor breeding timing is inferred here (Bangladesh national mammal account; Mammal Diversity Database).

Description: Wildlife of sulawesi guide, Wildlife of Everywhere (wildlifeofeverywhere.com)