Yellow-bellied sheath-tailed bat

The yellow-bellied sheath-tailed bat (Saccolaimus flaviventris), also known as the yellow-bellied sheathtail or yellow-bellied pouched bat, is a microbat of the family Emballonuridae found extensively in Australia and less commonly in parts of Papua New Guinea. Wilhelm Peters first described it in 1867. It is the largest Australian member of its family, with a mean body weight of 44 g, a shiny jet black back and a creamy white underside; males have a gular throat pouch thought to be used for territorial marking, and it has no wing pouch. It occupies most wooded habitats, from wet and dry sclerophyll forest to mallee, Acacia shrubland, desert and open woodland, and roosts in hollows of old trees, solitary or in small colonies of two to ten, with a record colony of 29. It feeds in the canopy at 20 to 25 m, mainly on beetles, along with grasshoppers and true bugs, and it may migrate to cooler southern Australia in summer. It is the only microbat positively identified as a carrier of Australian bat lyssavirus. The Mammal Diversity Database lists it as Least Concern.