Megaderma spasma
(Linnaeus, 1758) · speciesAt a glance
Sources12 archives
Databases and archives Megaderma spasma's data was compiled from.
WikipediaWikimedia Foundation11 languages↗
Animal Diversity WebUniv. of Michigan MZspecies account↗
BioWikiNetmultilingual Wikipediamultilingual↗
GBIFGlobal Biodiversity Information Facility639 records↗
ENAEuropean Nucleotide Archive · EMBL-EBI27 eDNA detections↗
BOLD SystemsCentre for Biodiversity Genomics31 specimens↗
Open Tree of LifeOpenTreephylogeny backbone↗
GoaTGenomes on a Tree · Sangergenome & karyotype↗
NCBIUS National Library of Medicinegenome & karyotype↗
Paleobiology DatabasePBDB consortiumfossil record↗
WikidataWikimedia Foundationstructured facts↗
GLoBIGlobal Biotic Interactionsbiotic interactions↗Every layer below draws on the sources above — open one to explore it, or use ← → to move between tabs.
The lesser false vampire bat (Megaderma spasma) is a bat found in South Asia and Southeast Asia from Sri Lanka and India in the west to Indonesia and the Philippines in the east. They live in caves and tree hollows. They are insectivorous. The lesser false vampire bat has a wingspan of up to 30 cm and have a head-and-body length of around 10 cm. Their forearms are normally around 7 cm. The lesser false vampire bat has yellowish veins through the wing, and when the wings are spread with light behind, they are given a prominent yellow/orange tinge. Their body colour ranges from grey-brown to blue-brown. Lesser false vampire bats live in rock crevices, caves, foliage and hollow trees, depending on availability, as well as hanging and sleeping on trees in general. Megaderma spasma is from the order Chiroptera and family Megadermatidae which comprises four genera and five species. M. spasma also known as lesser false vampire. Its type locality was in Indonesia, Molucca Islands and Ternate. There are two specimens of M. spasma collected in Sarawak Museum Unimas, one from Niah and another one from batu 16, Ulu Gombak. M. spasma was distributed in India to Indochina and Malay Peninsula, Sri Lanka, Andaman Islands, Sumatra, Borneo, Moluccas, Philippines, Sulawesi and other Indonesian islands. In Borneo, it can found in Sepilok, Darvel Bay area in Sabah, Niah and Kuching in Sarawak, upper S. Kapuas in West and upper S. Tengah in South Kalimantan. It is most closely related to the greater false vampire bat, which is the only other species in the genus Megaderma. M. spasma has fur pale grey to grey-brown in colour. Its noseleaf has long dorsal lobe with stiffened central ridge and broad convex flaps on the sides. Its ears are very large, joined at the base and it has no visible tail. Its echolocation pulses are short, low in density and broadband and its large ears are sensitive to echoes returning from their pulses and also sensitive to the sounds that prey generates. M. spasma usually roosts in groups in caves, pits, building, and hollow trees. M. spasma favours grasshoppers and moths but sometimes they eat small vertebrates including other bats. They have well developed, forward-pointing eyes and can locate prey visually. M. spasma usually roosts in a group of 3–30 individuals. Their ecological importance may be both positive and negative to humans. They eat some insects which harm human crops, but they may carry and transmit certain diseases. The bat is known as කන් දිගු බොරු ලේ වවුලා (kan-digu boru le wawula - meaning "long eared false vampire bat") in Sinhala.
No narrative description available for this taxon yet.
Size & morphology3
Life cycle & reproduction8
Diet & foraging6
Habitat & environment2
Physiology & chemistry2
Other traits2
A DNA barcode is a short, standardised stretch of genes that works like a fingerprint — enough to tell one species from another. Below is the molecular trace Megaderma spasma has left across the world's sequence archives.
At a glance
★ the standard DNA barcode for this group — the short region actually read to tell this species apart. The rest are extra genes sequenced along the way.
The complete instruction manual Megaderma spasma carries — its genome. We read it from three angles — how big it is, how the DNA is packed into chromosomes, and how completely it has been sequenced — and explain how to read each value as you go.
Genome sizehow big the whole instruction manual is
Measured in base pairs (bp) — the individual letters of DNA (human ≈ 3.2 Gb, a bacterium a few million). The chart places this genome on a logarithmic scale — each step to the right is ten times bigger — among reference organisms. Across species a bigger genome loosely tracks with larger cells, slower growth and lower-energy lifestyles (powered flight favours small genomes) — yet it does not imply more genes or a more advanced organism (the long-standing C-value paradox).
Chromosomes & ploidyhow the DNA is packaged
2n is the full chromosome count in a normal body cell; n is a gamete (egg or sperm), which carries half. Ploidy is how many complete chromosome sets each cell holds — 2× (diploid) is typical for animals, while higher levels (polyploidy) are common in plants. Click any value below to see the underlying records and sources.
2n 381×GoaT · Animal Chromosome Counts Database
Sequencing statusassembly quality — how far to trust these numbers
Assembly level tells you how finished the sequence is — from fragmented contigs, through scaffolds, up to a full chromosome-level assembly. BUSCO % estimates completeness: the share of genes expected to be present that were actually found. These describe the data quality, not the organism.
How far back this lineage goes — and how we know. Everything here is measured in Ma, short for “mega-annum”: millions of years ago. The chart reads left to right like a calendar of the Earth, from the deep past on the left to today at the right edgetop to bottom like a core drilled through the Earth, from the deep past at the top down to today at the bottom.
At a glance
When this lineage existed
How to read this: the coloured strip along the bottomdown the left is the geological calendar — the standard epochs (Pliocene, Pleistocene…) every museum uses, shown so you can see which chapter of Earth's history this lineage lived in. This lineage is a young one, so the strip is zoomed in to epochs — the finer subdivisions inside a period. The solid bar is the fossil range: the span between the oldest and the youngest fossil that palaeontologists have assigned to Megaderma spasma. Above itBeside it, each dot is one dated fossil find — few enough to count, so they are drawn individually rather than as a graph. The orange marker is the DNA clock: DNA accumulates mutations at a roughly steady rate, so comparing this species' DNA with its relatives estimates when the lineage split off — independently of any fossil. Where the DNA reaches further back than the oldest fossil, the gap is hatched: the ghost lineage. It means the lineage was already out there, but has left us nothing we have dug up yet.
How it livedPBDB
Record type641 records
Origin
Range
Wildobservation + sensor
Human sightings and records, or camera-trap / sensor detections — someone (or a device) saw or captured the species in the wild.
Museum / Voucheredphysical evidence
Backed by a physical specimen — a herbarium sheet, sample or voucher held in a collection. “Vouchered” means supported by material evidence, not just an observation.
Wildobservation + sensor
Human sightings and records, or camera-trap / sensor detections — someone (or a device) saw or captured the species in the wild.
Holding institutions13 of 19 geolocated
Institutions and collections holding physical, vouchered specimens of this species — click a row to fly to it on the map.
| Institution | Specimens |
|---|---|
| Toronto, CA | 47 |
| Wuzhou, CN | 32 |
| Washington, US | 17 |
| Stockholm, SE | 12 |
| University of the Philippines Los Baños Museum of Natural Historylocation not on record | 11 |
| Ann Arbor, US | 10 |
| Geneva, CH | 9 |
| Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn Natural History Museum (PSU Museum, Prince of Songkla University, Thailand)location not on record | 7 |
| South Kensington, GB | 6 |
| Saint John, CA | 5 |
| Louisiana State University, Museum of Zoologylocation not on record | 3 |
| Berkeley, US | 3 |
| Lubbock, US | 2 |
| Florida Museum of Natural History- Zoology, Paleontology & Paleobotanylocation not on record | 2 |
| Museum Zoologicum Bogoriense, Bogorlocation not on record | 2 |
| Tacoma, US | 1 |
| Los Angeles, US | 1 |
| University of Malaya, Museum of Zoologylocation not on record | 1 |
| East Lansing, US | 1 |
Where the DNA of Megaderma spasma was picked up in samples of water, soil or air — nobody saw the organism, only its DNA left behind. A trace is a clue that the species was near, not a confirmed sighting.
Signal
Where its DNA was found
How strong is each trace?
Modelled climatemodelled
How to read this: each dot is one detection of this species' DNA in an environmental sample. The confidence meter weighs how many independent studies and places back up the signal — one detection in one study is a hint; many across several studies is solid. Records dated before 2008 (when eDNA methods began) are treated as likely mislabeled and left off the map.