Ia (genus)

Ia is a genus of bat in the family Vespertilionidae. It belongs to the subfamily Vespertilioninae and has been placed in the tribe Vespertilionini. In the past, it has also been considered a synonym or subgenus of the genera Pipistrellus or Eptesicus,^[4] which used to contain many more species than they do now. Ia comprises a single living species, the great evening bat (I. io) of eastern and southeastern Asia, and one extinct fossil species, I. lanna, from the Miocene epoch in Thailand. Another living species, I. longimana, was recognized in the past, but it is no longer considered a valid species distinct from the great evening bat.

Ia Temporal range: Miocene–Recent PreꞒ Ꞓ O S D C P T J K Pg N
Scientific classification
Domain:	Eukaryota
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Mammalia
Order:	Chiroptera
Family:	Vespertilionidae
Tribe:	Eptesicini
Genus:	Ia Thomas, 1902[1]
Type species
Ia io Thomas, 1902
Species
†Ia lanna Mien & Ginsburg, 1997[2] Ia io Thomas, 1902[1]
Synonyms[3]
Parascotomanes Bourret, 1942

At two letters, Ia ties the bat-like dinosaur Yi and the butterfly Ge for the shortest possible name of any animal genus under the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature.^{[5][original research?]}

Notes

1. Thomas, Oldfield (1902). "On Two new Mammals from China". Annals and Magazine of Natural History. 7. 10 (56): 164–166. doi:10.1080/00222930208678653.
2. Mien, Pierre; Ginsburg, Léonard (1997). "Les mammifères du gisement miocène inférieur de Li Mae Long, Thaïlande: systématique, biostratigraphie et paléoenvironnement" (PDF). Geodiversitas (in French). 19 (4): 783–844.
3. Simmons, N.B. (2005). "Order Chiroptera". In Wilson, D.E.; Reeder, D.M (eds.). Mammal Species of the World: A Taxonomic and Geographic Reference (3rd ed.). Johns Hopkins University Press. p. 492. ISBN 978-0-8018-8221-0. OCLC 62265494.
4. Thabah, A.; Li, G.; Wang, Y.; Liang, B.; Hu, K.; Zhang, S.; Jones, G. (2007). "Diet, echolocation calls, and phylogenetic affinities of the great evening bat (Ia io; Vespertilionidae): Another carnivorous bat". Journal of Mammalogy. 88 (3): 728–735. doi:10.1644/06-MAMM-A-167R1.1.
5. International Commission of Zoological Nomenclature. 1999. International Code of Zoological Nomenclature, Art. 11.8. Online at http://www.iczn.org/iczn/index.jsp Archived 2009-05-24 at the Wayback Machine