Lesser sheath-tailed bat

The lesser sheath-tailed bat (Emballonura monticola) is a small bat of the family Emballonuridae found in the Malay Peninsula, including Myanmar and Thailand, Borneo and many other parts of the Indonesian Archipelago, including Sulawesi, Java and Sumatra. John Edward Gray described it in 1838 under the name Proboscidea monticola, from a specimen taken on Mount Munara in Java. It is found mostly in lowland forest and tropical moist areas, mainly up to about 1,800 metres, roosting in caves and cave entrances, rock crevices, large tree holes and forest, and sometimes under tables and buttresses in lowland forest or in man-made caves. It is nocturnal and colonial, hunts insects in dense forest and has occasionally been seen eating fruit. Animal Diversity Web notes that its population is declining, though it is still rated Least Concern because most animals live in protected areas; deforestation from illegal logging and forest fires and the destruction of caves for limestone extraction are growing concerns.