*+> Fauna : Mammals 



viscous juice. The Carponycterim^e are small bats, one of them 

 being quite the smallest of the Megachiroptera. The muzzle is 

 slender, long, and pointed. They are represented in Liberia 

 and adjacent parts of West Africa by one species (the rest of the 

 distribution being confined to the far east of Asia and the Malay 

 Archipelago) : this is usually called Megaloglossus woermannii? 

 Its small teeth are thirty-four in number ; there is no external 

 tail, and the first finger (index) is armed with a claw. The 

 colour of this brush-tongued bat is dark brown. Besides 

 Megaloglossus there ought to exist a form of Scotonycteris in 

 the Liberian forests, but no specimen of this yellowish brown 

 brush-tongued bat, with a white spot on the nose, has yet been 

 recorded from this country. 



The Insect-eating Bats of Liberia include eight recorded 

 species, but are probably represented by many more of 

 migratory habits not yet sent home by collectors. Of the 

 Rhinolophine family of leaf-nosed bats, to which our greater 

 and lesser horseshoe bats of England belong, there is Hipposiderus 

 fuliginosus. This has large broad ears and small antitragus (or 

 imitation earlet), a fleshy nose-leaf or complicated shield of 

 naked skin rising above the nostrils. The nose-leaf is of very 

 moderate dimensions compared to those of other horseshoe bats, 

 especially the extraordinary Trianops of Eastern Africa. In H. 

 fuliginosus (as in other species of the same genus) there is a kind 

 of pouch or sac on the forehead behind the nose-leaf (scarcely 

 developed in the female), the sides of which can be extended and 

 everted by the bat when it is excited. The sides of this pouch 

 are slimy or waxy with an odorous secretion. 



Of the bats of the Nycterid family there are two Liberian 

 examples Nycteris hispida and N. grandis. They are without 

 a nose-leaf, but the centre of the forehead is deeply hollowed and 



1 This genus is sometimes styled Trygenycteris. 

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