Australian scientists found images of bats in the cave, which are not found on this continent
In Australia, in one of the caves, scientists found wall paintings depicting animals similar to bats hanging under a vine. The cave with images of mice is located in the west of the continent, on the Kimberley Plateau.
Scientists from the University of Queensland believe that bats were painted by the ancient inhabitants of Australia during the last ice age, 20-25 thousand years ago. The animals depicted most of all resemble the living bats, or flying foxes. Meanwhile, the animals that inspired the ancient artist did not remind scientists of any of the bats currently inhabiting Australia. The researchers concluded that the foxes that inspired primitive artists are now extinct.
These animals hardly lived in caves like the one where the drawings were found.
According to the vine, the mice lived in the forest lowlands. According to Jack Pettigrew from the University of Queensland, eight painted mice have white marks on their faces, and no Australian mouse now has such "facial features", reports the BBC. Pettigrew and his colleagues decided to find out where on earth live bats similar to ancient mice. It turned out that two of these species live in Africa, and four - on the islands in South Asia.
In African mice, white spots on the head are found only in some individuals, which does not make them related to the ancient inhabitants of Australia. One of the Asian species has white spots above the eyes, but does not look like a pattern.
Others lack the white belly that Australian mice possessed. Wallace's fruit bats (Styloctenium wallacei), living on the island of Sulawesi, and the species Stylocteniummindorensis from the Philippine islands, remained similar. Both species have medium-sized abdomens and have characteristic white patches, like those painted by the aborigines. Be that as it may, the species Styloctenium is the closest relative of the flying mammals that previously inhabited Australia.