Family PH YLLOSTOMID^^.* 



Genus MACROTUS Gray." 



Macrotus Gray, Proc. Zool. Soc. London, 1843, 21. 



Otopierus Flower and Lydekker, Mammals Livinjij and Extinct, 1891, 673. 



Diagnosis. — Ears large, united, produced iuferiorly far beneath tlie 

 small external basal ridge; nosed-leaf simple, abruptly acuminate, com- 

 plete, no separation between the basal and ascending jiarts; the median 

 ridge conlined to the interval between the nostrils. Tragus tapering, 

 convex on inner border and straight on the outer. Wing membrane 

 reaching to ankle; tail long, extending a short distance beyond the 

 ample interfemoral membrane. Lower lip and mentum deeply cleft. 



3 2 12 



Dental formula. — Molars^,-; Premolars^; Caniues .. ; Incisors.^, x2^34. 



J. E. Gray (Voy. of Sulphur, p. 28), places Macrotus in a separate 

 division from the American leaf-nosed bats and of equal rank with the 

 groups now understood as the Stenodermata aifd Vampyri. The fol- 

 lowing genera are considered by him to be closely related and are thus 

 defined: Tail short, with point on the upper side of the wide inter- 



" PHYLLOSTOMID^.— Bats with laminate ectoturbinals of tlie ethmoid bone; 

 preraaxilla' with palatal processes forming a median suture and deliuiug an incisive 

 foramen; trapezium without palmar tubercle, thus permitting flexion of the thumb; 

 wings adapted for a fanning flight, (excejiting possibly /(oc//7io) but not for terrestrial 

 progression ; nlna with shaft anchylosed to the radius at the proximal third ; proxiiual 

 rudiment nouperforate; fifth digit without accessory cartilage; coracoid process not 

 bifid, curved forward ; no raised folds of skin at the junction of carpus and metacarpus 

 to represent the palmar fascia; no oblique line on the wing-membrane at the lower 

 third of the tibia; nose-leaf dominant, but absent in aberrant forms contained in 

 Lobostomi, Noctilionini, Natalini, Thyropterini. 



Mr. F. W. True has kindly furnished the following note: 



Flower and Lydekker, in their recently published work — Mammals, Living and Ex- 

 tinct — substitute the name Olopterns for this genus, on the ground that Macrotns, 

 Gray, is preoccupied l>y Macroiis, Dejean. It a])pears, however, that Dejean's name, 

 which was puV)lished in his Catalogue des CoJeopteres, 1833, ]>. 186, was not accom- 

 panied by a diagnosis, and has not been adopted by later writers on insects. It can 

 not, therefore, be regarded as valid. 



Quite aside fr<»m this fact, it is questionable whether Maerotun And .l/rtcco/i.s should 

 be regarded technically as identical names. Agassiz gives "•^a,Ypor?;f=longitudo'' as 

 the proper derivation of the latter (as also of his genus Maerota). This is inter- 

 esting, as Reid in 1836 (P. Z. S., p. 131) gave the name Macrotis to Paramelcs lagotia 

 (now called Peragale lagotia). If the difference in the termination of tlie two words 

 is to be disregarded, Gray's name is preoccupied by that of Reid. This, as already 

 stated, seems o])en to question, and Gray's name is, therefore, retained. 



441— Xo. 43 3 33 



