Indochinese Horseshoe Bat

About this species

Size

Head and body 4.8–6cm; tail 2–3.2cm; forearm 4.07–4.9cm

Weight

5.7–14.5g

Range

Thailand, Laos, Vietnam and Cambodia

The Indochinese horseshoe bat is a medium-small Rhinolophus with a head-and-body length of 4.8–6 cm, a 2–3.2 cm tail and a forearm of 4.07–4.9 cm; reported weights span 5.7–14.5 g. Its elaborate noseleaf includes a horseshoe, supplementary leaflets, an internarial cup, sella, connecting process and lancet. Careful noseleaf and skull comparisons are important because it closely resembles the Bornean horseshoe bat (Handbook of the Mammals of the World 2019; Kruskop 2013).

The species was described from Con Son in the Con Dao Islands off southern Vietnam and is now recognised across Thailand, Laos, Vietnam and Cambodia. It was long treated as a subspecies of the Bornean horseshoe bat, but genetic and morphological differences support species rank; DNA barcodes from Vietnam differed strongly from Bornean samples. Its placement within the traditional megaphyllus species group remains uncertain, and additional sampling is needed to resolve boundaries among mainland and Peninsular Malaysian populations (Francis et al. 2017; Handbook of the Mammals of the World 2019).

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