The bat consists of the anterior half of a skeleton (Figure 4) including skull, lower jaws, vertebral column, both shoulder girdles, and portions of both humeri and the left radius. The wrists, wing elements, most of the pelves, and the hind limbs are missing. Despite repeated attempts, we were unable to locate any teeth.  It may be that the expected (high) X-ray absorption of teeth is reduced in this specimen by demineralization in such a way that density differences between teeth and the surrounding matrix are minimal. The lack of any available tooth morphology limits our comparisons with other Eocene taxa to those that preserve comparable anatomical parts.

Higher level taxonomy follows Simmons (1998) and Simmons and Geisler 1998;. However, Springer et al. (2001) and Teeling et al. (2002) have recently presented molecular evidence supporting microchiropteran paraphyly. If this interpretation is true, then Tanzanycteris may be included in the suborder Yinpterochiroptera (Springer et al. 2001).