Mariana Fruit Bat

Mariana Fruit Bat
Mariana Fruit Bat
Conservation status
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Mammalia
Order: Chiroptera
Family: Pteropodidae
Genus: Pteropus
Species: P. mariannus
Binomial name
Pteropus mariannus
Desmarest, 1822
Mariana Fruit Bat range

The Mariana Fruit Bat (Pteropus mariannus), also known as the Mariana flying fox, and the fanihi in Chamorro is a megabat that is found only on Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands and Ulithi (an atoll in the Caroline Islands). Habitat loss has driven it to endangered status and it is listed as threatened by the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service. Poachers and food hunters harmed this bat as well as other animals and natural causes.

The Mariana Fruit Bat is a mid-sized bat which weighs between 0.6 to 1.1 lbs (33 - 57.7 dag), and has a forearm length of 5.3 to 6.1 inches (13.4 to 15.6 cm). Males of the species are slightly larger in size than the females. Their abdomens are colored from black to brown, while also having gray hairs. The mantle and the neck are a brighter brown to golden brown color and the head varies from brown to black. Their ears are rounded and their eyes large, giving it the features of a canid, and it is from this that many Megabats are called Flying Foxes.[1]

The bat is a culinary delicacy by the Chamorros of Guam and is linked to neurological disease called Lytico-Bodig disease. Paul Alan Cox from the Hawaiian National Tropical Botanical Garden in Kalaheo, and Oliver Sacks from Albert Einstein College in New York, found out that the bats consumed large quantities of cycad seeds, and - like some eagles, which were shown to build up levels of the pesticide DDT in fat tissue - probably accumulate the toxins to dangerous levels.[2]

The current population numbers as are of yet unobtained.

Subspecies

This species has three subspecies[3]

  • Pteropus mariannus mariannus (Guam Mariana Fruit Bat)
  • Pteropus mariannus paganensis (Pagan Mariana Fruit Bat)
  • Pteropus mariannus ulthiensis (Ulithi Mariana Fruit Bat)

References

  1. ^ "Mariana fruit Bat (=Mariana flying fox) (Pteropus mariannus mariannus)", U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service Environmental Conservation Online System
  2. ^ "Bat-Eating Linked to Neurological Illness", National Geographic, June 13, 2003
  3. ^ Don E. Wilson & DeeAnn M. Reeder (editors). 2005. Mammal Species of the World. A Taxonomic and Geographic Reference (3rd ed), Johns Hopkins University Press, 2,142 pp. (Available from Johns Hopkins University Press, 1-800-537-5487 or (410) 516-6900, or at http://www.press.jhu.edu).

External links

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