Patagonian bonneted bat

The Patagonian bonneted bat (Eumops patagonicus), also called the Patagonian dwarf bonneted bat, is a small free-tailed bat found in Argentina, Bolivia and Paraguay in southern South America. The British zoologist Oldfield Thomas described it as a new species in 1924 from a specimen supplied by the Argentinean-Italian scientist Roberto Dabbene, and the name patagonicus means belonging to Patagonia. From about 1932 until the 1990s it was widely treated as a subspecies of the dwarf bonneted bat, and a 2016 classification places it in the bonariensis species group of the genus Eumops, with the dwarf bonneted bat and two other species. It is small for its genus, with a forearm of 44 millimetres, a head and body of 54 millimetres, a tail of 31 millimetres and ears of 14.5 millimetres. The IUCN rates it least concern because its range is large, its population is likely large and it is not thought to be declining rapidly.