Description of a new African Bat, Leiponyx büttikoferi

In the family of the Pteropodidae there are three genera in which the claw to the index finger is wanting, viz. Cephalotes, Notopteris and Eonycteris. The first of these genera is represented by two, the others each by a single species. They are distributed in the following manner: Cephalotes peronii inhabits the islands of the Austro-Malayan subregion, while Cephalotes minor is to be found in New Guinea; Notopteris macdonaldii is limited to the Fiji-group and Aneiteum-island and Eonycteris spelaea is to be found in caves on the Indian continent (Burma). The Pteropodidae met with by the numerous travellers in the African continent belong without exception to the genera Epomophorus and Cynonycteris. Taking these facts into consideration I was greatly surprised to find in a small collection of bats, made in Liberia by our travellers Büttikofer and Sala a Pteropus-like bat, which did not possess a claw to the index finger and so could not belong to a species of Epomophorus or Cynonycteris. This species differing in many points from the other species without a claw to the index finger, I am obliged to regard our specimen as the type-species of a new genus, which I propose to call