26 EXTINCT AND VANISHING MAMMALS 



believed now to have become extinct during the last century. 

 Anthony's interesting discovery of its remains in the Cathedral 

 Cave in Puerto Rico indicates not only that this island may 

 have been its home but also that it was fairly common there. 

 The curious shape of the rostrum, so short and square, with 

 heavy anterior molars, may indicate that it was adapted for 

 feeding on some special kind of fruit, the abundance of which 

 has been seriously affected through the clearing and burning 

 of the original forest cover with cultivation on the island. 

 Coincident with such restriction of food, the bat may have been 

 much reduced in numbers until its final extinction. Anthony 

 mentions the possibility that it may still be found on other 

 islands but has been overlooked on account of a certain resem- 

 blance to the common Artibeus. 



PUERTO RICAN LONG-TONGUED BAT 

 PHYLLONYCTERIS MAJOR Anthony 



Phyllonyderis major Anthony, Bull. Amer. Mus. Nat. Hist., vol. 37, p. 567, Sept. 7, 



1917 (cave near Morovis, Puerto Rico). 

 FIGS.: Anthony, 1917c, pi. 56, figs. 1, 2; 1918, p. 356, figs. 12, a-d (skull). 



HAITIAN LONG-TONGUED BAT 

 PHYLLONYCTERIS OBTUSA Miller 



Phyllonyderis obtusa Miller, Smithsonian Misc. Coll., vol. 81, no. 9, p. 10, Mar. 30, 

 1929 ("Cave near the Atalaye plantation, about 4 miles east of St. Michel, 

 Haiti"). 



The bats of this genus are known only from Cuba, Puerto 

 Rico, and Hispaniola of the Greater Antilles, where slightly 

 differing local forms have developed on each island. On Cuba 

 the living species, P. poeyi, though apparently not very com- 

 mon, nevertheless occurs in numbers in suitable caves, as at 

 Guana jay, where Palmer secured a large series in 1900 (Miller, 

 1904), Baracoa, or in the Sierra de Hato Nuevo, where in 1917 

 Dr. Thomas Barbour found a large colony. On the other hand, 

 in Puerto Rico it is unknown in the living state, though found 

 in the superficial cave deposits, and the same is true of the 

 Hispaniolan form; both are therefore included here among 

 species nearly or quite gone. 



These are small bats with long narrow skulls and long pro- 

 trusible tongues, which are useful in licking up fruit pulp and 



