Scientists Assumed They Were Looking at Two Different Species of Bat

For the first time in a mammal species, scientists are able to observe a rare phenomenon known as parallel evolution in real time on the Solomon Islands.

Scientists recently figured out that on two different islands, two types of bats that were formally assumed to be two completely separate species due to their unique size and look are actually the same bats. The larger ones simply evolved from the smaller ones at the same rate as other bats on a different island.  

Scientists and researchers originally named the two species of bats in question on the Solomon Islands Hipposideros dinops and Hipposideros diadema. The Hipposideros dinops, also known as the fierce leaf-nosed bat, weighs almost twice as much as their friend, the Hipposideros diadema, or the diadem leaf-nosed bat.

As Dr. Tyone Lavery, a researcher at the University of Melbourne and co-author of this exciting finding, “We have two very different-looking bats, a smaller species (H. diadema) and a larger species (H. dinops). The sizes are vastly different (nobody has ever confused the two as being the same species).”