Nyctalus lasiopterus, Europe's biggest living bat, has been proven to be a long lived species. It's fossils are over ten thousand years old, dating from the Late Plestocene. What's more, it used to have a much wider geographical range than it's modern counterparts, suggesting that the species is not doing too well.
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It is an important finding because this species is not common in the fossil record. In fact, the discovery of Nyctalus lasiopterus at the Abríc Romaní site (Capellades, Barcelona) is one of the few cases of fossils existing on the species in the European Pleistocene," says Juan Manuel López-García, principal author of the work and researcher at the Institute of Social Evolution and Human Palaeoecology at the Rovira i Virgili University (URV).
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Photo Credit: A.G. Popa-Lisseanu et al. / SINC