NORTH AMERICA AND THE WEST INDIES 29 



Family NATALIDAE: Long-legged Bats 

 CUBAN YELLOW BAT 



NATALUS PRIMUS Anthony 



Natahis primus Anthony, Bull. Amer. Mus. Nat. Hist., vol. 41, p. 642, Dec. 30, 1919 

 ("Daiquiri, Cuba," in the Cueva de los Indies). 



The bats of the family Natalidae are small and delicately 

 formed and have noticeably long and slender legs and distinctly 

 funnel-shaped ears. The ample interfemoral membrane is 

 supported in part by the tail, which extends to its border. In 

 distribution the members of this family are confined to tropical 

 America and occur on some of the West Indies, to which three 

 of the genera are confined: Chilonatalus (on the Bahamas, 

 Greater Antilles, and Old Providence Island), Nyctiellus (the 

 Bahamas and Cuba), and Phodotes (island of Curagao). The 

 genus Natalus is the only one occurring on the mainland from 

 tropical South America north to central Mexico, as well as in 

 both the Greater and the Lesser Antilles. In the latter it is 

 known living from the island of Dominica (N. dominicensis 

 Shamel) and Antigua; in the former, from the Dominican 

 Republic (Natalus major Miller). It is thus especially inter- 

 esting that in the course of his cave investigations in eastern 

 Cuba, Dr. H. E. Anthony should have found the present species 

 represented by mandibles associated with Nesophontes and 

 Boromys in the Cueva de los Indios at Daiquiri, "buried but a 

 short distance under the surface. The bone is stained a very 

 dark brown and probably represents an extinct form." From 

 N. major, of the Dominican Republic, hitherto the largest known 

 member of the genus, "it may be known by its even greater 

 length of mandible and noticeably heavier teeth. The first 

 lower molar is especially 'plump' in contour and the tooth 

 extends externally considerably beyond the alveolar border." 

 The mandible on which the description is based measured 14.4 

 mm. in greatest length or about a millimeter more than in the 

 large form of the Dominican Republic, of which it may be 

 regarded as the Cuban representative. The color in life was 

 perhaps yellowish, as in some of its near relatives. 



Nothing further is known of the species, but since it has not 

 been found living by any of the various collectors who have 

 searched for bats in Cuba, it is probably, as Anthony says, 

 extinct. 



