Hassianycteris messelensis was an early bat that lived in what is now Germany during the mid-Eocene, about 47 million years ago.
It’s generally considered to be very closely related to the common ancestry of modern bats – but a recent study suggests that the stem-bat evolutionary tree is actually quite a bit more complicated than previously thought.
It had a 35-40cm wingspan (~14″-16″), and thanks to the exceptional preservation of the Messel Pit fossil site we actually know some details about its external life appearance. One specimen preserves a soft-tissue impression of its ear shape, and fossilized melanosomes suggest that its fur was colored reddish-brown.
Its wing proportions indicate it was adapted to fly high and fast in open spaces, and its strong jaws and preserved gut contents show it mainly preyed on tough-shelled insects like beetles.
References:
- Colleary, Caitlin, et al. “Chemical, experimental, and morphological evidence for diagenetically altered melanin in exceptionally preserved fossils.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 112.41 (2015): 12592-12597. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1509831112
- Habersetzer, Jörg, Gotthard Richter, and Gerhard Storch. “Paleoecology of early middle Eocene bats from Messel, FRG. Aspects of flight, feeding and echolocation.” Historical Biology 8.1-4 (1994): 235-260. https://doi.org/10.1080/10292389409380479
- Jones, Matthew F., K. Christopher Beard, and Nancy B. Simmons. “Phylogeny and systematics of early Paleogene bats.” Journal of Mammalian Evolution 31.2 (2024): 18. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10914-024-09705-8
- Wikipedia contributors. “Hassianycteris” Wikipedia, 23 Jan. 2024, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hassianycteris