Large flying fox

Large flying foxes eat fruit, flowers and sweet nectar.

They love figs, bananas and mangos. As they eat, they carry seeds and pollen from tree to tree.

Large flying foxes eat fruit, flowers, nectar and pollen. Wild figs are one of their most important foods, and they also eat bananas, mangos and the flowers of coconut and durian trees.

They slice fruit open with their teeth and scoop out the soft inside with their long tongues, which also lap up nectar. In one day a flying fox can eat about half its own weight in fruit. Some fly up to 50 kilometers in a night to reach their feeding trees.

The IUCN identifies hemi-epiphytic figs as a staple in natural and disturbed landscapes, though full dietary data exist only for the Philippines and Sarawak. ADW lists flowers, nectar, pollen and fruit, including bananas, mangos, coconut, durian and fig. Bats slice the rind with their teeth, extract the pulp with a long tongue that also laps nectar, carry up to 200 grams at a time and can eat half their body weight in fruit a day.

Feeding groups of 2 to 50 gather at trees, landing on branch tips and hanging head-down to eat; individuals may fly up to 50 kilometers a night and return to the same grounds until the food runs out. Seeds and pollen move with them: ADW describes Pteropus as seed dispersers and pollinators of forest trees, including durian.

Flying foxes live in big, noisy groups.

They sleep in tall trees in the day. At sunset they fly off to find fruit, and they come back at dawn.

Large flying foxes are very social and very noisy. They roost in tall trees that stick up above the forest, in groups that can number in the thousands, and sometimes share their roosts with other kinds of bats.

They leave the roost around sunset and come back at dawn. They are quiet while flying but noisy while feeding and when they return to the roost. Each bat guards its own spot, spreading its wings and growling to keep neighbors at a distance.

ADW describes highly social, vocal colonies sometimes numbering in the thousands, roosting in emergent trees above the canopy and sometimes with other species. Roost sites are used for many years, and the bats' claws can strip trees of bark and leaves.

Bats emerge around sunset and return at dawn. They are mostly silent in flight but loud while feeding and on returning to the roost, when calls help maintain spacing and territory; individuals defend roosting spots by spreading their wings, growling and calling, and flowering trees seem to encourage territorial behavior at feeding sites. Activity in the roost increases through the day and may include short flights around it.

There are far fewer large flying foxes than before.

Many forests have been cut down, and people hunt them. Some countries now protect them. Flying foxes help forests grow by spreading seeds.

The IUCN lists the large flying fox as Endangered. Scientists think its numbers have fallen by at least half in about 25 years. Many of its lowland forests have been cut down, people hunt it for meat and medicine, and fruit growers sometimes kill it.

This matters for forests too, because flying foxes spread seeds and pollinate trees. When there are too few of them, they stop spreading seeds. Some countries, such as the Philippines, now ban hunting them.

The IUCN assessed Pteropus vampyrus as Endangered (A2bcd) in 2021 (published 2022), with a decreasing population: a suspected decline of at least 50 percent over three generations (about 24 to 25 years), based on more than 37 percent forest loss in its range and intensive, unsustainable hunting for meat and medicine. Other threats are roost disturbance, persecution by fruit growers, and rising seas and stronger typhoons that affect coastal and island roosts.

It is nationally Endangered in Peninsular Malaysia and the Philippines and Critically Endangered in Singapore and Viet Nam red data books. Hunting of all fruit bats is prohibited in the Philippines, and the species is on CITES Appendix II, but hunting still occurs at most accessible roosts. Because flying foxes stop dispersing seeds at low abundance, the IUCN warns that some populations may already be functionally extinct.