Shamel's Horseshoe Bat

Shamel's horseshoe bat is a medium-sized Rhinolophus of continental Southeast Asia. Its external appearance overlaps with the smaller croslet horseshoe bat, but a specialist revision demonstrated consistent differences in noseleaf proportions, skull and echolocation frequency. Careful identification is therefore important where both species occur (specialist taxonomic review; Mammal Diversity Database).

It ranges through Myanmar, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam and roosts in caves near forest. It emerges after dusk to catch nocturnal insects using nasal constant-frequency echolocation. Thai records and museum specimens support a broad continental distribution, although it is not necessarily common at each locality (specialist taxonomic review; Thailand biodiversity records). It is Nationally Least Concern (Thailand Red Data 2025).