Large-eared Horseshoe Bat

About this species

Diet

Insects

Habitat

Humid caves and mine roosts; forest-interior foraging

Range

Indonesia, Malaysia, Brunei, the Philippines, Timor-Leste and Papua New Guinea

The Philippine horseshoe bat is also known as the large-eared horseshoe bat, a more useful field name because its distribution extends well beyond the Philippines. It is an insect-eating member of Rhinolophidae, with the family’s horseshoe-shaped noseleaf and constant-frequency echolocation. A larger form once treated as a variant is now recognised as Rhinolophus robertsi, which can occur alongside R. philippinensis. That taxonomic history makes measurements from older reports difficult to assign confidently (Wikipedia general species account; Mammal Diversity Database).

Species records come from Indonesia, Malaysia, Brunei, the Philippines, Timor-Leste and Papua New Guinea. It uses humid caves and mine workings as daytime roosts and may share them with other horseshoe bats. A synthesis of Bornean bat ecology classifies it as a cave-roosting, narrow-space forager in forest interiors, consistent with manoeuvring within clutter rather than hunting high over open ground. No reproduction figures are stated because the sources opened did not document them specifically for this species (Australian recovery plan; Bornean bat ecology synthesis).

Description: Wildlife of sulawesi guide, Wildlife of Everywhere (wildlifeofeverywhere.com); general species information paraphrased from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA)