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ID help? Chad, Africa. Free-tailed bat (?) flew into our bathroom (1 Viewer)

My family and I live in N'Djamena, Chad. The other night we left the bathroom window open and in the morning we found this little guy hiding in our bathtub. I know that photos here should be of wild and free creatures, but please know that we had only put him in this bucket in the fourth photo to protect him while he slept because we have cats. We released him to our porch in the evening and he woke up and happily flew off within minutes. The shower head photo, though blurry, is included to indicate size.

Looks like a free-tailed bat to us. Are we right? If so, which species? Egyptian?

Thanks for your help!
 

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Certainly a free-tailed bat; need to look at various books such as Mammals of Africa to see if it can safely be narrowed down further...

Thanks! Helpful to know my wife was in the right ballpark.

Wikipedia shows only four free-tailed bat species in Chad: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mammals_of_Chad#Order:_Chiroptera_(bats). Gland-tailed, Nigerian, Little, and Midas'.

The only thing that seems fairly certain is that it's not Gland-tailed. The diagram on the bottom right of p. 497 here (http://www.academia.edu/16901999/Tadarida_bemmeleni_Gland-tailed_free-tailed_bat) shows visible glands to either side of the tail, which is not visible in our tail photo.

Most of the descriptions I could find of Midas' (e.g., http://tsammalex.clld.org/parameters/mopsmidas) have it with whitish underparts, which ours did not.

Both Little and Nigerian are dark. We didn't stretch out the wings or flip it over to be able to see the white stripes discussed here (https://www.researchgate.net/publication/232675210_Chaerephon_nigeriae) that would help confirm.

It may have been a Little. Littles are smaller, and this one was certainly quite small. (Then again, it could have been a juvenile Nigerian.) This site (http://animaldiversity.org/accounts/Chaerephon_pumilus/) also says that "These bats hunt by themselves and return to their roosts after feeding," which could have explained its solo presence in our shower.

So I'm going to say it was most likely a Little Free-tailed Bat, leaving open the possibility that it might almost as well have been a Nigerian F-t B.

Anybody agree / disagree?
 
My family and I live in N'Djamena, Chad. The other night we left the bathroom window open and in the morning we found this little guy hiding in our bathtub. I know that photos here should be of wild and free creatures, but please know that we had only put him in this bucket in the fourth photo to protect him while he slept because we have cats. We released him to our porch in the evening and he woke up and happily flew off within minutes. The shower head photo, though blurry, is included to indicate size.

Looks like a free-tailed bat to us. Are we right? If so, which species? Egyptian?

Thanks for your help!

It will be tough to ID this I think but can I offer a word of advice regarding handling of this or other Bats. Make sure you wear gloves, Bats like many other mammals, can carry rabies.



A
 
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