Tent-making bat

The tent-making bat (Uroderma bilobatum) is a small fruit-eating New World leaf-nosed bat of the family Phyllostomidae that lives in lowland forest from southern Mexico to Peru and southeastern Brazil. It is dark grayish brown with a narrow white line down the middle of the back, white lines above and below each eye, yellow-rimmed ears and a pair of distinctively two-lobed upper middle incisors. The forearm is about 42 millimetres long. It earns its name by chewing the veins of large leaves along the midrib so that the leaf folds down into a tent, under which groups of 2 to 59 bats roost. It feeds mainly on fruit and may take some pollen, nectar and insects, so it is an important disperser of seeds and a pollinator of tropical plants, although it may occasionally damage fruit crops. In Panama it breeds twice a year, in step with the fruiting and flowering cycle, and a single young is born after four or five months of gestation. The IUCN lists the species as Least Concern and describes it as common in lowland forests.