Arnhem sheath-tailed bat

The Arnhem sheath-tailed bat (Taphozous kapalgensis), also called the Arnhem tomb bat or white-striped sheathtail-bat, is an emballonurid bat found at the Top End of Australia. John McKean and Gordon Friend described it as a new species in 1979 from a holotype collected near the South Alligator River in the Northern Territory, and its name refers to Kapalga, the type locality. Its brownish fur often has an orange hue, and a broad, almost white stripe on the flank beneath the wing gives the common name white-striped sheathtail. The forearm is 57 to 63 millimetres long, the wingspan about 42 centimetres and the average weight 26 grams. It hunts at speed above the tree canopy, with abrupt changes of direction, and also feeds near open water. Fewer than twenty recorded sites lie in mangrove, floodplains, associated woodland and fragments of monsoonal forest, and records are rare. The IUCN evaluated it as least concern as of 2017, part of its range is protected, and the Northern Territory lists it as near threatened.