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NATURAL HISTORY · CATALOGUE RECORD

White-bellied House Bat

Scotophilus leucogaster (Cretzschmar, 1826)

Source-backed taxonomic record

Accepted species in Catalogue of Life’s 11 September 2026 base release. This preserves the source classification and available supporting data; it is not a completed species monograph.

Exhibit in the Museo Civico di Storia Naturale di Genova, Via Brigata Liguria, 9, 16121, Genoa, Italy. Photography was permitted in the museum without restriction.

Exhibit in the Museo Civico di Storia Naturale di Genova, Via Brigata Liguria, 9, 16121, Genoa, Italy. Photography was permitted in the museum without restriction.

Daderot · CC0 · Image source

Provider-generated thumbnail requested at 800 pixels; no local editing Local WebP display rendition; resized without cropping.

Open encyclopedia reference

The white-bellied yellow bat (Scotophilus leucogaster) or white-bellied house bat, is a species of vesper bat in the genus Scotophilus, the house bats. It can be found in Angola, Benin, Botswana, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Ivory Coast, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Kenya, Mali, Mauritania, Namibia, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Sudan, Togo, Uganda, and Zambia. It is found in dry and moist savanna and open woodland. It is a common species with a very wide range, and the International Union for Conservation of Nature has assessed its conservation status as being of "least concern".

Wikipedia contributors, White-bellied yellow bat; see linked history · CC BY-SA 4.0 . Plain-text lead excerpt, at most 180 words; no infobox or later sections Retrieved 2026-10-05T10:12:47.778809+00:00. This reference remains separate from the taxonomic record.

Identity & source status

Scientific name
Scotophilus leucogaster (Cretzschmar, 1826)
Name authority
(Cretzschmar, 1826)
Common name
White-bellied House Bat
Rank
species
Accepted status
accepted
Kingdom
Animalia
Phylum
Chordata
Class
Mammalia
Order
Chiroptera
Family
Vespertilionidae
Genus
Scotophilus
Extinction status
Recorded extant

Classification family tree

Nested taxonomic groups from the source. This is not a direct-ancestor chain, a dated evolutionary tree or a phylogenetic reconstruction.

  1. domainEukaryota (Chatton, 1925) Whittaker & Margulis, 1978
  2. kingdomAnimalia
  3. phylumChordata
  4. subphylumVertebrata
  5. infraphylumGnathostomata
  6. parvphylumOsteichthyes
  7. megaclassTetrapoda
  8. classMammalia Linnaeus, 1758
  9. subclassTheria Parker & Haswell, 1897
  10. infraclassEutheria Gill, 1872
  11. orderChiroptera Blumenbach, 1779
  12. suborderYangochiroptera Koopman, 1984
  13. superfamilyVespertilionoidea Gray, 1821
  14. familyVespertilionidae Gray, 1821
  15. subfamilyVespertilioninae Gray, 1821
  16. tribeScotophilini Hill & Harrison, 1987
  17. genusScotophilus Leach, 1821
  18. speciesScotophilus leucogaster (Cretzschmar, 1826)

Close classified relatives

These entries share the source’s genus, Scotophilus. They are not necessarily the closest relatives established by molecular evidence.

SpeciesClassificationSource status
African Yellow BatScotophilus dinganii (A. Smith, 1833)VespertilionidaeChordataAccepted speciesRecorded extant
Common Yellow BatScotophilus heathii (Horsfield, 1831)VespertilionidaeChordataAccepted speciesRecorded extant
Lesser Asiatic Yellow BatScotophilus kuhlii Leach, 1821VespertilionidaeChordataAccepted speciesRecorded extant
Livingstone's House BatScotophilus livingstonii Brooks & Bickham, 2014VespertilionidaeChordataAccepted speciesRecorded extant
Robust House BatScotophilus robustus A. Milne-Edwards, 1881VespertilionidaeChordataAccepted speciesRecorded extant
Malagasy Yellow BatScotophilus tandrefana Goodman, Jenkins & Ratrimomanarivo, 2005VespertilionidaeChordataAccepted speciesRecorded extant
Trujillo's House BatScotophilus trujilloi Brooks & Bickham, 2014VespertilionidaeChordataAccepted speciesRecorded extant
Eastern Greenish Yellow BatScotophilus viridis (Peters, 1852)VespertilionidaeChordataAccepted speciesRecorded extant
Western Greenish House BatScotophilus nigritellus de Winton, 1899VespertilionidaeChordataAccepted speciesRecorded extant
Eritrean House BatScotophilus colias Thomas, 1904VespertilionidaeChordataAccepted speciesRecorded extant
Andrew Rebori's House BatScotophilus andrewreborii Brooks & Bickham, 2014VespertilionidaeChordataAccepted speciesRecorded extant
Sulawesi Yellow BatScotophilus celebensis (Sody, 1928)VespertilionidaeChordataAccepted speciesRecorded extant

Browse 407 records assigned to Vespertilionidae.

Documented distribution

Source distribution statements, not a complete range map. A listed locality is not necessarily a place of origin.

Africa

Source literature & publication evidence

References attached to this source record, including nomenclatural citations where supplied. This is a selected bibliography; abbreviated citations remain in the source’s form.

  1. https://www.itis.gov/servlet/SingleRpt/SingleRpt?search_topic=TSN&search_value=632152 Source fields: Taxon.tsv dwc:namePublishedIn, Taxon.tsv dcterms:references

Origins, evidence & remaining research

Name authority and publication references document nomenclature where the source supplies it. They do not establish evolutionary origins or the earliest fossil occurrence.

Specimen-level evidence, morphology, ecological research, phylogenetic studies, a comprehensive bibliography and a located literary passage have not yet been compiled for this record.

Dataset citation & attribution

This exact taxon in ChecklistBank · Catalogue of Life 2026-09-11

Catalogue of Life 2026-09-11; dataset 316321; doi:10.48580/dgz5n. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ . Retrieved 5 October 2026.

Stable key: col:4VY5K. Classification follows source parent identifiers. English common names may vary by region.