Hughes et al.: Rediscovery of the New Guinea Big-eared Bat 
229 
Figure 4. Pharotis imogene from near Oio Village, live animal showing nose-leaves and skin membrane joining both ears (scale, least 
distance between nostril margins = 2.5 mm, photo J. Broken-Brow). 
mm; head body length 50.12 mm, tibia length 18.93 mm, 
ear length (measured from anterior base of the tragus) 24.00 
mm, calcar 15.04 mm, body weight 7.70 g. The teats were 
rudimentary, and it was not clear if the animal was nulliparous. 
The Pharotis specimen from Oio (Figs 3-5) closely 
resembles M2561 in the Australian Museum collection, (from 
the original series from Kamali) in overall body size and has 
a forearm length of 39.6 mm, comparable to 37.5-39.4 mm 
given for three females by Bonaccorso (1998). It also closely 
resembles M2561 in the shape and relative size of the anterior 
nose-leaf, the well-developed posterior nasal prominence, and 
the relatively large ears and distinctive tragus shape. Both 
specimens clearly exhibit key diagnostic features proposed 
by Thomas (1914) to distinguish Pharotis from Nyctophilus. 
These include the convex dorsal margin of the nose-leaf 
above the nostril (Fig. 6), which contrasts with the median 
concave margin typical of Nyctophilus^ a deep pit immediately 
posterior to the posterior nasal prominence which is absent in 
Nyctophilus , and the lobe on the inner margin of the tragus is 
located midway between each side of the tragus, rather than 
located on the outer tragal margin in Nyctophilus. 
One of the most useful held characters for distinguishing 
the New Guinea Big-eared Bat from species of Nyctophilus 
is the area of skin between and above the nostrils, which 
is completely naked (Figs 3-6), but is covered with fine 
hairs in Nyctophilus. 
Table 1 . Total number of bats captured per species in one harp trap during 11 harp trap-nights during July 
2012 in the environs of Bonoabo, Bam and Oio villages, Abau district. 
species 
females 
males 
Diadem Horseshoe-bat Hipposideros diadema (Geoffroy, 1813) 
1 
0 
Least Blossom Bat Macroglossus minimus (Geoffroy, 1810) 
10 
17 
Common Bentwing-bat Miniopterus australis Tomes, 1858 
2 
1 
Western Bentwing-bat Miniopterus magnater Sanborn, 1913 
1 
0 
Large-footed Mouse-eared Bat Myotis moluccarum (Thomas, 1915) 
2 
2 
Small-eared Nyctophilus Nyctophilus microtis Thomas, 1888 
1 
0 
New Guinea Big-eared Bat Pharotis imogene Thomas, 1914 
1 
0 
New Guinea Pipistrelle Pipistrellus angulatus angulatus (Peters, 1880) 
1 
0 
Papuan Pipistrelle Pipistrelluspapuanus (Peters & Doria, 1880) 
1 
1 
Watts’s Pipistrelle Pipistrellus wattsi Kitchener, Caputi & Jones, 1986 
1 
0 
Total captures 
21 
21 
