Casting of Important Bat Fossil

A NON-COMMERCIALLY AVAILABLE PLASTER CAST OF ONE OF THE MOST PRIMITIVE AND OLDEST BAT SPECIES KNOWN

Although bats are one of the most diverse groups of mammals today, they are also one of the least common groups in the fossil record. Bats have small, light skeletons that do not preserve well. Also, many live in tropical forests, where conditions are usually unfavorable for the formation of fossils. Thus we know little about the early evolution of bats.

The fossil from which this casting was made dates from the Early Eocene (approx. 56-48 million years ago), and was discovered in the Green river Formation, Wyoming. It is of particular importance as it is one of the oldest known bat species and has provided evidence in the ongoing debate over whether bats could fly before they could echolocate. Although initial studies of the original fossil of Onychonycteris finneyi — currently held at the American Museum of Natural History — indicated that these bats could fly but that their cochlea were not large enough to support echolocation, further research has since indicated that laryngeal echolocation may have been possible.

This is an inter-institutional plaster cast not made commercially so is the only one available publicly.

References:

-Nancy B. Simmons, Kevin L. Seymour, Jörg Habersetzer & Gregg F. Gunnell - Primitive Early Eocene bat from Wyoming and the evolution of flight and echolocation. Nature 451, 818-821 (14 February 2008) | doi:10.1038/nature06549

-Simmons, Nancy B., "Taking Wing." In: Scientific American, December 2008, Vol. 299, No. 6, pp 96-103

-Speakman, John, "Evolutionary Biology: A first for Bats." In: Nature, February 14, 2008, p. 774.

-Kenneth Chang, February 14, 2008 "Primitive Bats Took to the Wing, but They Didn’t Have That Ping", New York Times http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/14/science/earth/14bats.html?ref=science