Gray, 1842
Hairy-winged bats
Externally, this genus is similar to Murina (Mule1) with protuberant, tubular nostrils. The skull is more heavily built with the rostrum relatively shorter, broader and more abruptly truncate anteriorly (Fig. 257). The upper incisors are very large; the crowns are low and with distinct secondary cusps. The upper canine is excessively thick and low, without peculiar cusps. The upper premolars are large. The protocone and paracone of M1 and M2 are greatly reduced from their normal size; the mesostyle is absent; the outer side of each tooth therefore resembles a rather shallow, wide V enclosing a noticeable concave depression. The metacone is the most developed cusp; the parastyle and metastyle unusually large though rather indistinctly outlined. M3 is very greatly reduced, it is represented by just a small scale of a tooth which is applied to the posterior surface of M2; it retains a faint trace of an outer and inner cusp. The lower molars have all their cusps, except the protoconid, much reduced. In consequence, they strongly approximate in form to the lower premolars.
Dental formula: i - 2 3 c 1 pm - 2 - 4 m 1 2 3 = 34.
1 2 3 1 - 2 - 4 1 2 3
This genus was considered by Koopman, 1993 to be mono-specific (although Corbet and Hill, 1992 treated the taxon mordax as a distinct species from harpia ). Its range extends from India to Java and Taiwan. One species is recorded from the Indian subcontinent:
Harpiocephalus harpia