Meghalaya records India’s first bat with sticky disks

Eudiscopus denticulus was recorded from the Lailad area near the Nongkhyllem Wildlife Sanctuary, about 1,000 km west of its nearest known habitat in Myanmar

Meghalaya has yielded India’s first bamboo-dwelling bat with sticky disks, taking the species count of the flying mammal in the country to 130. The disk-footed bat (Eudiscopus denticulus) was recorded in the north-eastern State’s Lailad area near the Nongkhyllem Wildlife Sanctuary, about 1,000 km west of its nearest known habitat in Myanmar. A team of scientists from the Zoological Survey of India (ZSI) and a few European natural history museums stumbled upon this “very specialised” small bat with “disk-like pads in the thumb and bright orange colouration” while sampling in a bamboo patch almost a year ago.