The Long-legged Bat, Macrophyllum macrophyllum, is a bat

Bat

Bats are mammals of the order Chiroptera "hand" and pteron "wing") whose forelimbs form webbed wings, making them the only mammals naturally capable of true and sustained flight. By contrast, other mammals said to fly, such as flying squirrels, gliding possums, and colugos, glide rather than fly,...

 species

Species

In biology, a species is one of the basic units of biological classification and a taxonomic rank. A species is often defined as a group of organisms capable of interbreeding and producing fertile offspring. While in many cases this definition is adequate, more precise or differing measures are...

 from South

South America

South America is a continent situated in the Western Hemisphere, mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere. The continent is also considered a subcontinent of the Americas. It is bordered on the west by the Pacific Ocean and on the north and east...

 and Central America

Central America

Central America is the central geographic region of the Americas. It is the southernmost, isthmian portion of the North American continent, which connects with South America on the southeast. When considered part of the unified continental model, it is considered a subcontinent...

. It is monotypic in its genus.

It hunts close over the water surfaces of lakes and slowly flowing streams, where it seizes insects right above or directly off the surface in a manner similar to Noctilio leporinus and Myotis daubentoni.
This is an interesting example of convergent evolution

Convergent evolution

Convergent evolution describes the acquisition of the same biological trait in unrelated lineages.The wing is a classic example of convergent evolution in action. Although their last common ancestor did not have wings, both birds and bats do, and are capable of powered flight. The wings are...

 which may imply just how valuable a habitat the water surface is to insectivorous bats.

The sound emission, in contrast is quite different from the other water-hunting bats. M. macrophyllum has a very prominent noseleaf, and it emits the echolocation sounds through the nostrils. The time frequency characteristics of the sounds are almost identical to those of Micronycteris microtis: short (1-2 ms) multiharmonic FM
sweeps with most energy in the second harmonic between 95 and 75 kHz. However, the
sounds resemble those of a number of other phyllostomid bats, including Micronycteris microtis, but new results indicate that the intensity is significantly higher.