horseshoe bat

British

noun

any of numerous large-eared Old World insectivorous bats, mostly of the genus Rhinolophus, with a fleshy growth around the nostrils, used in echolocation: family Rhinolophidae

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

A kobuvirus that infected civets in the Huanan market was closely related to a virus detected in animals sold in Sichuan and Guangxi provinces, which are closer to the territory of horseshoe bats and pangolins.

From Los Angeles Times

They included a horseshoe bat called Rhinolophus mabuensis and a dwarf musk shrew which scientists are still in the process of naming and describing.

From BBC

But the civets proved to be intermediate hosts, and its natural host was later identified as horseshoe bats.

From New York Times

It remains the most likely explanation for how a coronavirus circulating in horseshoe bats in China came to infect humans in the first place.

From Los Angeles Times

Britain's population of greater horseshoe bats was, until recently, restricted to south and west Wales and south-west England.

From BBC

Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023