Eudiscoderma thongareeae (photo Pipat Soisook)

A team of international scientists, led by two SEABCRU members, Dr. Pipat Soisook (Prince of Songkla University, Thailand) and Dr. Paul Bates (Harrison Institute, UK), discovered a new genus and species of false vampire. The new bat, namely Eudiscoderma thongareeae, is the sixth member of a small family Megadermatidae. It is named to reflect its disc-liked noseleaf and to honor Ms Siriporn Thongaree, the retired, former head of the Halabala Wildlife Research Station where the bat was found.

The species is very rare and only known from 3 specimens collected from a small area. The finding suggests how little we know about biodiversity, particularly in the forest areas of SE Asia.

The paper describing the new bat is published in the latest issue of Zootaxa. A copy of the full text pdf can be requested from the author, e-mail; pipat66@gmail.com

Pipat Soisook, Amorn Prajakjitr, Sunate Karapan, Charles M. Francis & Paul J. J. Bates (2015). A new genus and species of false vampire (Chiroptera: Megadermatidae) from peninsular Thailand. Zootaxa 3931 (4): 528-550.