Fossil Chiroptera collected by H.E. Anthony in Jamaica, 1919-1920. American Museum novitates ; no. 1519

Abstract

"The foregoing account has, in terms of described forms, not added any radical novelties to the West Indian faunal picture. Tonatia saurophila occurs as a Jamaican endemic, the genus being unknown elsewhere in the Antilles, and is quite comparable to the Jamaican Oryzomys. The discovery of Brachyphylla and Natalus on Jamaica and the rediscovery of the phyllonycterine Reithronycteris round out a distributional pattern otherwise anomalous. Very interesting are the hints presented by the fossil material of faunal replacement, of successive invasions, and successive extinctions. The validity of this conception probably extends beyond the chiropteran order, but additional evidence is needed to translate the suggested picture into concrete terms not alone for Jamaica but for the other Antilles"--P. 27.