"The furry, winged creature was shot down in the South Pacific and brought by ship to Philadelphia, where it was skinned and stored in a jar of alcohol alongside other curios of the Victorian era. It was a kind of fruit bat, also called a flying fox for its foxlike face. Yet only now, after sitting on a shelf for more than 150 years, has it finally been "discovered" as a new species." - Bird-botts from Bookmarklet

"Academy records show the bat was collected in 1856 by Henry Clay Caldwell of the Navy on the Samoan island of Upolu. It came into the possession of William S. W. Ruschenberger, a surgeon who at various times was president of the College of Physicians and of the academy. He donated it in 1857." - Bird-botts

"The creature had a wingspan of at least two feet, and it weighed a half-pound when alive. In the paper, published in the journal American Museum Novitates, Helgen identified a second, even larger bat species in the collection of the Smithsonian. Helgen, whose coauthors include his wife, Lauren, and Smithsonian bat specialist Don Wilson, dubbed the academy's specimen Pteropus allenorum. They took the name in part from Allen Drew, an old friend who hosted them here." - Bird-botts

The linked page cannot be opened. Is this kind of bat still existing on the earth? - shen lian

The link opens in my browser (FF 3.5). ... I don't think the bat's current status is really known, since no one has known to look for it, but the researchers suspect that it is extinct. The article doesn't specify why they think it's extinct. - Bird-botts

The authors suspect the extinction maybe they didn't find a live one in the real world? I can't open the link maybe I live in a strict policy country... - shen lian

They don't give a reason. The newspaper article was more focused on how the specimen got to Philadelphia, how the researchers found and identified it, and the various other jars in the museum. They probably think it's extinct because it hasn't been spotted, and it would be difficult to miss something that large. But a lot of these islands haven't really been explored thoroughly by scientists, and new species are found all the time, so it could possibly still be lurking somewhere. But the article doesn't specify. - Bird-botts