Christmas Island pipistrelle
species of mammal
The Christmas Island pipistrelle (Alionoctula murrayi) is an extinct species of vesper bat that was found only on Christmas Island, Australia. The last individual bat was detected in August 2009 with no further sightings despite intensive efforts to locate it.
Taxonomy and etymology
It was described as a new species by British paleontologist Charles William Andrews, in a monograph published in 1900. Its species name "murrayi" was likely inspired by Sir John Murray, who helped pay for Andrews's expedition to the Christmas Island where he described it.
It has sometimes been considered synonymous with Pipistrellus tenuis; however, revisions of the genus based on baculum identified Pipistrellus murrayi as a distinct species. This was supported by genetic work conducted for the Australian government as part of its investigation into the decline of Christmas Island biodiversity and the pipistrelle in mid-2009; the results of this analysis indicate that the Christmas Island pipistrelle was closely related to but distinct from other Asian pipistrelles.
Description
It was a small bat weighing around 3–4.5 g (0.11–0.16 oz). It had dark brown fur, with the tips of its hairs yellowish. Its forearm was 30–33 mm (1.2–1.3 in) long. It was the smallest described species of bat in Australia.
The public source identifies “Christmas Island pipistrelle” as species of mammal. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Christmas, Island and pipistrelle.
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Datasets, specimens, observations and peer-reviewed methods provide the appropriate test for the technical claims summarized here. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 22, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q574038. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 2009 and 1900.
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This entry incorporates text from “Christmas Island pipistrelle” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.