Gregg Gunnell News Today

A hitherto unknown species of bat based on the oldest bat skeletons ever recovered has been identified by researchers at the American Museum of Natural History and Naturalis Biodiversity Center in the Netherlands.

The study centers on an extinct bat that lived in Wyoming about 52 million years ago.

I am the *wheezes in Eocene* night.

52-million-year-old fossils support idea that bats diversified rapidly on multiple continents during the Eocene. Scientists have discovered a new bat species, Icaronycteris gunnelli, based on the oldest bat skeletons ever found in Wyoming's Green River Formation. The study supports the idea that

A newly described image of a bat skeleton Icaronycteris Gunnelli. Found in the Green River Formation in Wyoming, this skeleton is the oldest skeleton ever

The newly-discovered species lived in the Western US 52 million years ago. Before recently, they were assumed to be another species.