Bat

Bats are flying mammals of the order Chiroptera with forelimbs developed as wings. There are two main types: megabats (megachiropterans or fruit bats) and microbats (microchiropterans).

Megabats eat fruit, while microbats eat mainly insects, and often rely on echolocation for navigation and finding prey.

Little is known about the evolution of bats since their small, delicate skeletons do not fossilize well. The oldest known bat fossil is Icaronycteris from the early Eocene (about 50 million years ago), but it is already very similar to modern microbats.

Bats are usually grouped with the tree shrews (Scandentia), flying lemurs (Dermoptera), and the Primates in superorder Archonta.

Placement

Kingdom Animalia

Subkingdom Deuterostomia

Phylum Chordata

Subphylum Vertebrata

Class Mammalia

Subclass Theria

Order Chiroptera

Families

• Suborder Megachiroptera
  • Pteropodidae
• Suborder Microchiroptera
  • Rhinopomatidae
  • Craseonycteridae
  • Emballonuridae
  • Nycteridae
  • Megadermatidae
  • Rhinolophidae
  • Noctilionidae
  • Mormoopidae
  • Natalidae
  • Furipteridae
  • Thyropteridae
  • Myzopodidae
  • Vespertilionidae
  • Mystacinidae
  • Molossidae

References

http://animaldiversity.ummz.umich.edu/chordata/mammalia/chiroptera.html
as of 2002-05-31