Gervais, 1856
Free-tailed bats
This is a widely distributed family of bats which occurs both in the Old World in Africa, southern Europe, southern Asia and Australia and in the New World in North, Central and South America. According to Corbet and Hill, 1992, it is comprised of 13 genera and around 89 species. They are small or medium-sized insectivorous bats with a stout tail that projects conspicuously beyond the narrow interfemoral membrane (Fig. 118). The ears are variable in form, usually fleshy, sometimes joined across the forehead; the tragus of each ear is rudimentary and the antitragus is usually large (Fig. 265, Tpl1). The nostrils open on to a pad and the face is sprinkled with spoon hairs; the upper lip is often wrinkled. The wings are long and narrow (Tte2), the fifth digit (metacarpal and phalanges) of each is scarcely longer than the second metacarpal; the second digit has one rudimentary phalanx; the third digit has three phalanges, the first of these is retroflexed on to the dorsal surface of the metacarpal when the wing is at rest. The skull has no postorbital processes (Tte1, Owr1). The teeth are of the normal insectivorous type. The third lower incisor (i3) is variably present or absent, even within species.
Genera of Molossidae encountered in the Indian Subcontinent:
Genus Otomops
Genus Tadarida
Species identification
Jump to the Text Key of this family Page 8: Family Rhinopomatidae / Molossidae.