Nyctitheriidae

Nyctitheriidae is a family of extinct eulipotyphlan insectivores known from the Paleocene and Eocene epochs of North America and Asia and persisting into the Oligocene of Europe. Several genera, including Nyctitherium, Paradoxonycteris, and Wyonycteris, have initially been described as bats, although the family is more frequently placed in the order Eulipotyphla.

== Origins and discovery == left|thumb|211x211px|Leptacodon|Leptacodon sp. from the early [[Paleocene (61 Mya).]] O.C. Marsh originally described Nyctitherium, from the Eocene of Wyoming, as an early bat based on similarities of its teeth. Since 1872 more than two dozen other genera of nyctitheriids have been named, and several of these have also initially been considered bats. G.G. Simpson recognized that Nyctitherium did not represent a bat, and in 1928 named the family Nyctitheriidae for Nyctitherium and several other small insectivores.