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False Vampire Bats
Megadermatidae
Megadermatidae, or false vampire bats, are a family of bats found from central Africa, eastwards through southern Asia, and into Australia. They are relatively large bats, ranging from 6.5 cm to 14 cm in head-body length. They have large eyes, very large ears and a prominent nose-leaf. They have a wide membrane between the hind legs, or uropatagium, but no tail. Many species are a drab brown, but some are white, bluish-grey or even olive-green, helping to camouflage them against their preferred roosting environments.
They are primarily insectivorous, but will also eat a wide range of small vertebrates.
6 branches of this family, most-observed first · about 6 known species

Megaderma
genusMegaderma

Lavia
genusLavia

Cardioderma
genusCardioderma

Lyroderma
genusLyroderma

Macroderma
genusMacroderma

Eudiscoderma
genusEudiscoderma
Where it lives
Recorded sightings
—
geo-referenced records in GBIF, from museums, herbaria and field observers.
Drag the globe to turn it. Dots are where records exist, not a range map; darker means more records.
In the stacks
Searching the stacks…
Every page naming Megadermatidae in the Biodiversity Heritage Library →
This page is assembled live from iNaturalist, GBIF, Wikipedia, the Source Library and the Internet Archive. It is not yet part of the hand-edited codex. iNaturalist taxon 41319.