Tiny new species of bat discovered on Comoros Islands

A newly discovered bat that is the size of a moth. ©Muséum de Genève; photo: Manuel Ruedi.

July 2009. During a study of the bats of the Comoros Archipelago in the Indian Ocean, researchers from the Natural History Museum of Geneva made an amazing discovery: A tiny bat weighing just 5 grams and no bigger than a human thumb which is believed to be a new species.

The scientists used a combination of morphological and genetic techniques to rebuild the history of this enigmatic bat. A further population was subsequently discovered on Madagascar, where it had also remained undetected. It is thought that, as a much older land mass, the bat probably evolved on Madagascar before spreading to the Comoros.

The bat has been named Aellen's long-fingered bat, or ‘Miniopterus aelleni', in homage to professor Villy Aellen, a distinguished director of the Natural history museum and major specialist in bats.

On average ten new species of mammal are discovered every year in the world since 2000, which shows just how much there still remains to discover.