Western false pipistrelle
species of mammal
The western false pipistrelle, species Falsistrellus mackenziei, is a vespertilionid bat that occurs in Southwest Australia. The population is declining due to loss of its habitat, old growth in tall eucalypt forest which has largely been clear felled for tree plantations, wheat cultivation and urbanisation. Although it is one of the largest Australian bats of the family, the species was not recorded or described until the early 1960s. A darkly colored bat with reddish brown fur and prominent ears, they fly rapidly around the upper canopy of trees in pursuit of flying insects.
Taxonomy
A species of genus Falsistrellus, allied to the family Vespertilionidae. A 1986 revision of morphological characters of the genus Pipistrellus separated the tasmaniensis group as the type of the new genus, the eastern false pipistrelle species Falsistrellus tasmaniensis, and described this new species Falsistrellus mackenziei (western false pipistrelle).
The holotype was collected at Donelly, in the south-west of Australia, in 1962 by W. Boswell.
The population has been noted with the misspelling mckenziei (for synonym Pipistrellus mackenziei) in a 2001 conservation plan. The epithet was derived from the surname of a zoologist, Norman Leslie McKenzie, employed by the Government of Western Australia.
The relationships of vespertilionid bats are poorly resolved and while the genus Falsistrellus is known to be paraphyletic, all other arrangements of the taxa remain contentious.
“Western false pipistrelle” enters the record as species of mammal. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Western, false and pipistrelle can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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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 Oct 5, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q1831829. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1986, 1962 and 2001.
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This entry incorporates text from “Western false 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.