Craseonycteris thonglongyai, the hog-nosed bat, is the smallest mammal in the world. It has an adult body weight between 1.5 and 2.0 grams, and its wingspan is less than 3 inches across. The body is about the size of a large bumblebee (the other common name for this bat is the "bumblebee bat"). This species is the only member of the family Craseonycteridae and was unknown to science until 1974. Known only from Thailand and Myanmar, these tiny bats live only in a few limestone caves in forested karst landscapes. Because they are rare and have such a restricted geographic range, this species is considered endangered.

This male specimen was collected in the Sai Yoke district of Thailand on 2 September 1976. It is one of fewer than 30 individuals ever collected, and is the only specimen in the United States. It was made available to The University of Texas High-Resolution X-ray CT Facility for scanning by Dr. Nancy Simmons of the American Museum of Natural History, courtesy of the Smithsonian Institution Division of Mammals. Funding for scanning was provided by an National Science Foundation grant (DEB-9873663) to Dr. Simmons, and funding for scanning and image processing was provided by an NSF Digital Libraries Initiative grant to Dr. Timothy Rowe of The University of Texas at Austin.

This specimen was scanned by Matthew Colbert on 14 January 2003 along the coronal axis for a total of 1782 slices. Each slice is 0.021 mm thick, with an interslice spacing of 0.021 mm and a field of reconstruction of 20.0 mm.

Mammalian Species account of Craseonycteris thonglongyai (American Society of Mammalogists)

Craseonycteris thonglongyai on Walker's Mammals of the World page

Species account on the Animal Diversity Web (The University of Michigan Museum of Zoology)

Bat Conservation International

None available.