NTCTIMENE. 



683 



Bdelyg-ma, Matschie, I. s. c. (1899) ; Thomaa, Ann. Sf Mmj. N. H. 

 (7) V. p. 217 (1900: iuseparable from Nyctimene) ; Matschie, 

 jlhh. Seiick. not. Ges. xxv. 11. 2, p. 272 (1900j ; I'runesmrt, Cat. 

 Mavim., Suppl. p. 64 (1904) ; Jentink, Notes Leyd. Mus. xxviii. 

 p. Ki.J (190t)); Elliot, Cat. Mamm. Field Col. Mus. p. 495 

 (1907). 



Summary of cliaract.c'rs.— Q\no])Xcr\r\e fjroup. llostrura unusually 

 deep anteiiorly ; premaxilke ankyloscd together in front, their 

 ascending branches short, not reaching nasals (character observable 

 only in imoiatux'e skulls) ; mesopterygoid fossa broad and deep ; 

 postdental palate constricted at middle. Incisors ^ - q ; lower canines 

 at anterior extremity of jaw, quite or nearly in contact ; cheek- 

 teeth -. Tongue with four circumvallato papilla? ; inner surface of 

 lips densely fringed all round with odontoid papilke ; nostrils 

 projecting as cylindrical tubes from ujjper surface of muzzle ; tail 

 sube(]ual in length to tibia; wings always spotted with yellow. 

 I 8rntcd to be ])arth', if not entirely, insectivorous.] Forearm 50- 

 8o'5 mm. [12 species. Huh. The Austro-Malayan subregion, 

 south-west to Timor, south-east to Queensland.] 



Few genera of Fruit-bats are more easily identified than Kycti- 

 mene. It is at once distinguished from all other Fruit-bats (and 

 indeed from all other Bats, except Marina and Harpiocephalus) by 

 its tubular nostrils. No other known bat has four eircumvallate 

 papillre (three, two, or none being the numbers known elsewhere 

 in the Order). It is the only genus of Fruit-bats combining these 

 two dental characters, viz. incisors-- q, check-teeth^, or these 

 two external characters, viz. sharply-defined yellow wing-spots, tail 

 present (in the only other Meguchiroi)teran genus with equally 

 well-marked yellow wing-spots, Balionycieris, the tail is absent ; 

 more or less obscurely-defined spots on the membranes are not 

 infrequently observed in some other genera, e. g. Eomji-teris). 

 Any Fruit-bat with a well-marked dark spinal stripe may, by that 

 character alone, be safely identified as a Nyctimene (but the stripe 

 is obsolesceut in a few species of the genus). 



Skull (fig. 61). — General shape essentially Cynopterine (fig. 48, 

 p. 588), but with peculiar modifications of the rostrum and of the 

 floor and lateral walls of the posterior narial passage. llostrura 

 even shorter than in Cynopterus, extremely deep, and conspicuously 

 compressed laterally, the breadth of the interdental palate being, 

 if anything, rather less than in Cynopterus: length of rostrum 

 (orbit to nares) between i and J- (in Cynoptems from slightly more 

 to somewhat less than \) of total length of skull ; height of 

 rostrum above p* equal to or rather more than (in Cynopterrts only 

 I of) breadth across external surfaces of p^-p"*. Extremity of 

 nasals ^/^-shapcd (practically square-cut in Cynopterus and Mega- 

 chiroptera in general), the median projection produced forward 

 and downward and firmly united with the extremity of the 

 cartilaginous nasal septum. Premasillse very deep vertically and 

 B'llidlv coalesced in fmnt with'''iit trace of {■ut'Jre rthe inter- 



