The two oldest-known fossil skeletons of bats, unearthed in southwestern Wyoming and dating to at least 52 million years ago, are providing insight into the early evolution of these flying mammals — today represented by more than 1,400 species.
The fossils, described in a new study, are of a previously unknown species called Icaronycteris gunnelli that is closely related to two other species known from slightly younger fossils from the same area, which during the Eocene epoch was a humid and subtropical ecosystem centered on a freshwater lake.
"This bat was not much different than the insectivorous bats flying around today," said paleontologist Tim Rietbergen of the Naturalis Biodiversity Center in the Netherlands, lead author of the study published this week in the journal PLOS ONE.