Belongs within: Vespertilionidae.
Wild and woolly bats
Published 21 July 2025
The vesper bats of the Vespertilionidae are one of their order’s most challenging corners. Vesper bats are diverse, consistently recognised as the largest family of bats, yet often generic in appearance and difficult to characterise. Nevertheless, there are some subgroups of Vespertilionidae well recognised as distinct, among which are the woolly or funnel-eared bats of the subfamily Kerivoulinae.
Kerivoulines may be found in warmer, usually forested habitats across Africa, southern Asia and Australasia. They are small, delicate bats lacking the more extravagant modifications such as large nose-leaves or tubular nostrils found in some other bat families. As the vernacular name of ‘woolly bat’ suggests, their fur is long and soft. The ears are more or less funnel-shaped, with the sides overlapping at the base. Closer up, kerivoulines are distinguished by a higher number of teeth than many other vespertilionids (possessing the full complement of 38), and by a particularly short sternum that is much less than twice as long as the width of the presternum (Miller 1907). The habits of Kerivoulinae seem to be poorly studied, as is the case for many bat groups, but they appear to be slow, fluttery fliers, capable of a good degree of manoeuvrability. The golden-tipped bat Phoniscus papuensis of eastern Australia has been suggested to be a specialist hunter of orb-weaving spiders which they probably take while hovering (Schulz 2000).
A little over thirty species of kerivouline are currently recognised. However, again as for other bats, recent studies have tended to identify a certain degree of cryptic diversity among these morphologically somewhat conservative animals (e.g. Tu et al. 2018). As a result, we may well see species numbers increase in the coming years. The majority of kerivoulines are included in the genus Kerivoula, with a handful of species of the genus Phoniscus found between Malaysia and Australia. One Phoniscus species, P. aerosus, was originally described as found in South Africa; it does not appear to have been identified since and its reported locality was probably mistaken (Koopman 1994). The two genera are mostly distinguished by fairly fine details of the skull—among other things, Phoniscus species have a distinct groove on the upper canine—and authorities have differed on whether they should indeed be treated as distinct or whether Phoniscus should be sunk to a subgenus of Kerivoula.
Like other bats, kerivoulines are perhaps most imperilled by the clearing of their habitats, though most species do not appear to be under immediate threat. One species that has undergone a marked decline in recent decades, for perhaps one of the more unexpected reasons, is the painted bat Kerivoula picta. This southern Asian species is remarkably coloured, being a bright orange or scarlet with black wings that are marked by orange stripes around the fingers. So eye-catching is its appearance that it has become hunted in parts of its range so that it may be taxidermied and sold as a tchotchke for tourists. In some locations, it has completely disappeared, a victim of what may be one of the most tasteless threats to which a species could ever be subject.
Systematics of Kerivoulinae
<==Kerivoulinae
|--Phoniscus Miller 1905M07
| |--*P. atrox Miller 1905 [=Kerivoula (*Phoniscus) atrox]MW88
| |--P. jagoriiBP87
| `--P. papuensis (Dobson 1878)FS15, MW88 [=Kerivoula papuensisMW88]
`--Kerivoula Gray 1842 [=Cerivoula Blanford 1891, Kirivoula Gervais 1849; incl. Nyctophilax Fitzinger 1860]M07
| i. s.: K. aerosaIT07
| K. brunneaM07
| K. harrisoniM07
| K. jagoriiIT07
| K. pusillaM07
|--*K. hardwickiiM07, FS15 [=Vespertilio hardwickiiM07]
|--K. africanaFS15
|--K. agnellaFS15
|--K. argentata Tomes 1861FS15, SA86
|--K. cuprosaFS15
|--K. eriophoraFS15
|--K. floraFS15
|--K. intermediaFS15
|--K. kachinensisFS15
|--K. krauensisFS15
|--K. lanosaFS15
|--K. minutaFS15
|--K. muscinaFS15
|--K. myrellaFS15
|--K. pellucidaFS15
|--K. phalaenaFS15
|--K. pictaFS15
|--K. smithiiFS15
|--K. titaniaFS15
|--K. whiteheadiFS15
`--+--K. lenisFS15
`--K. papillosaFS15
*Type species of generic name indicated
References
[BP87] Burton, J. A., & B. Pearson. 1987. Collins Guide to the Rare Mammals of the World. Collins: London.
[FS15] Faurby, S., & J.-C. Svenning. 2015. A species-level phylogeny of all extant and late Quaternary extinct mammals using a novel heuristic-hierarchical Bayesian approach. Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution 84: 14–26.
[IT07] Isaac, N. J. B., S. T. Turvey, B. Collen, C. Waterman & J. E. M. Baillie. 2007. Mammals on the EDGE: conservation priorities based on threat and phylogeny. PloS One 2 (3): e296.
Koopman, K. F. 1994. Handbuch der Zoologie: Eine Naturgeschichte der Stämme des Tierreiches vol. 8 pt 60. Chiroptera: Systematics. Walter de Gruyter.
[MW88] Mahoney, J. A., & D. W. Walton. 1988. Vespertilionidae. In: Walton, D. W. (ed.). Zoological Catalogue of Australia vol. 5. Mammalia pp. 128–145. Australian Government Publishing Service: Canberra.
[M07] Miller, G. S., Jr. 1907. The families and genera of bats. Smithsonian Institution, United States National Museum, Bulletin 57: i–xvii, 1–282, pls 1–14.
[SA86] Schlitter, D. A., I. R. Aggundey, M. B. Qumsiyeh, K. Nelson & R. L. Honeycutt. 1986. Taxonomic and distributional notes on bats from Kenya. Annals of Carnegie Museum 55 (12): 297–302.
Schulz, M. 2000. Diet and foraging behavior of the golden-tipped bat, Kerivoula papuensis: a spider specialist? Journal of Mammalogy 81 (4): 948–957.
Tu, V. T., A. Hassanin, N. M. Furey, N. T. Son & G. Csorba. 2018. Four species in one: multigene analyses reveal phylogenetic patterns within Hardwicke’s woolly bat, Kerivoula hardwickii-complex (Chiroptera, Vespertilionidae) in Asia. Hystrix, the Italian Journal of Mammalogy 29 (1): 111–121.