Fun Facts!

As they fly back and forth between roosting and feeding sites, they “poop out” the seeds from the fruit they have eaten. This rain of seeds from the sky helps recycle the forest vegetation, and the “poop” is a good fertilizer.

Rodrigues Fruit Bat

Pteropus rodricensis

PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION

The Rodrigues fruit bat is small, with a body length of eight inches and wingspan of two feet. They are sometimes called flying foxes because of their long canine-like snout, pointed ears, and dog-like eyes. Their fur is variable in color, from black to silver, yellow, orange, and red. Their wings are actually made of thin skin which is stretched between the fingers and thumb of each hand. Their long fingers are the support structure for their wings.

HABITAT

They live in the treetops of Rodrigues Island, off the coast of Madagascar.

DIET IN THE WILD

Fruit juice, and plenty of it! They drink the juice of fruit, which they extract by putting fruit pieces in their mouth and squeezing it out, then they spit the fruit pulp out.

BEHAVIOR

These fruit bats are nocturnal and social animals. They eat primarily as the sun goes down. First a few individuals will flap away from the roost tree. Soon the whole colony takes to the wing. Their destination is always the same­­ -- to fruit trees. After several hours of eating and digesting at the feeding site, the colony returns to the roosting site, sometimes swooping down for a drink of seawater along the way. The seawater contains important minerals not present in their food.

STATUS IN THE WILD / CONSERVATION EFFORTS

They are endangered - it is estimated that there are possibly only 1,000 Pteropus rodricensis in the wild. Nearly a century ago, these bats inhabited the island of Mauritius by the tens of thousands. Heavy deforestation destroyed their habitats and they are no longer found there. Also, cyclones on the Rodrigues Islands in the 1960s and 1970s badly damaged the fruit bat habitat. Today, intensive conservation programs are underway.

LIFE SPAN

These bats have a long life of nearly 20 years in the wild, and double that in captivity.