NATURAL HISTORY · CATALOGUE RECORD
Percival's Short-eared Trident Bat
Cloeotis percivali Thomas, 1901
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.
Open encyclopedia reference
Percival's trident bat (Cloeotis percivali) is a species of bat in the family Hipposideridae. It is monotypic within the genus Cloeotis. It is found in Sub-Saharan Africa, with its core distribution in Southern Africa. It has been reported from Botswana, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Eswatini, Kenya, Mozambique, South Africa, Tanzania, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. Its natural habitats are savannas where there are suitable caves and mine tunnels that it can use for roosting. Colonies are never large (no more than about 300 individuals). Local numbers fluctuate greatly. Colonies can disappear, perhaps because they move to another place or go extinct.
Wikipedia contributors, Percival's trident bat; see linked history · CC BY-SA 4.0 . Plain-text lead excerpt, at most 180 words; no infobox or later sections Retrieved 2026-10-05T13:11:17.533805+00:00. This reference remains separate from the taxonomic record.
Identity & source status
- Scientific name
- Cloeotis percivali Thomas, 1901
- Name authority
- Thomas, 1901
- Common name
- Percival's Short-eared Trident Bat
- Rank
- species
- Accepted status
- accepted
- Kingdom
- Animalia
- Phylum
- Chordata
- Class
- Mammalia
- Order
- Chiroptera
- Family
- Rhinonycteridae
- Genus
- Cloeotis
- 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.
- domainEukaryota (Chatton, 1925) Whittaker & Margulis, 1978
- kingdomAnimalia
- phylumChordata
- subphylumVertebrata
- infraphylumGnathostomata
- parvphylumOsteichthyes
- megaclassTetrapoda
- classMammalia Linnaeus, 1758
- subclassTheria Parker & Haswell, 1897
- infraclassEutheria Gill, 1872
- orderChiroptera Blumenbach, 1779
- suborderYinpterochiroptera Springer, Teeling, Madsen, Stanhope & Jong, 2001
- superfamilyRhinolophoidea Gray, 1825
- familyRhinonycteridae Gray, 1866
- genusCloeotis Thomas, 1901
- speciesCloeotis percivali Thomas, 1901
Close classified relatives
No other member of this genus is present in the selected snapshot.
Documented distribution
Source distribution statements, not a complete range map. A listed locality is not necessarily a place of origin.
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.
- Thomas, & Oldfield. (1901). Some new African Bats (including one from the Azores) and a new Galago. The Annals and Magazine of Natural History, Including Zoology, Botany, and Geology, 7th Ser., Vol. 8, No. 43. 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. A suitable sourced image remains to be added.
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:5ZC85. Classification follows source parent identifiers. English common names may vary by region.