There
are a few different types
of bats and flying foxes in Australia.
Bats are an interesting group of Australian animals. They are the only
flying
mammals - and this is how they got to Australia.
Australia’s original
mammals were only marsupials. Bats are placental animals, but because
they came to
Australia by themselves (i. e. they were not brought here by humans),
they are considered to be Australian native animals.
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Information on Bats in Australia
There are almost 80 species of bats in Australia and they represent
about 20%
of Australia’s native mammals. Two thirds are found in tropical north,
in the climate similar to their origins. Bats are further classified as
megabats and microbats. The most obvious difference is their size, but
there are others such as feeding, social system and ways of navigation.
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Megabat - Flying Fox
Most megabats are large, but there are smaller ones such as blossom
bats which are only up to 60mm long. What is common in the group of
megabats is that they don’t use echolocation for navigation as do
microbats. Megabats use their eyesight which is why they’ve all got
large eyes while the eyes of microbats are tiny. Because using
echolocation is what bats are famous for, Australians say that megabats
are not real bats – and they call (most of) them flying foxes.
Flying
foxes live in large colonies. They eat fruit, flowers and nectar and
they are important pollinators of trees. They migrate from their
roosting sites where they sleep during the day, to their feeding sites
every day at sunset, eat during the night, and at sunrise they fly back
to their roosting sites to sleep the whole day. Flying foxes are some
of
the smartest animals and they have
complex communication and social structure. During the breeding season
there can be
hundreds of thousands flying foxes in their colonies and being so many,
they damage trees. Flying foxes also carry viruses that can be harmful
to
humans and they should not be touched.
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Some Information on Bats
A newborn flying fox cannot fly and clings to its mother during the
first month of its life. Once it’s strong enough to hang off the tree
and roost, it is left to the roosting site while its mother goes
feeding night time. By two months of age it has learned to fly but
starts the daily migration to feeding site once it’s about three months
old.
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Australian Megabat Species
There are four species of flying foxes amongst Australian animals.
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Types of Bats in Australia: Black Flying Fox
Black Flying Fox (Pteropus alecto) is found along
the northern
coast of Australia, from Sydney
in the east to Shark
Bay in the west. It lives in mangroves,
rainforests and paperbark swamps. It has got a short black fur and a
reddish collar on the back of its neck. It is a large bat, weighing up
to 700g and it has a wingspan greater than 1m.
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Types of Bats
in Australia: Spectacled Flying Fox
Spectacled Flying Fox (Pteropus conspicillatus) can
weigh up to 850g. It is dark brown or black and has a yellow ring
around the neck. It is found only along the coast of north Queensland,
from Mackay
in the south to the tip of
Cape York in the north. It lives in mangroves,
rainforests and paprebark swamps and it feeds in pairs. Spectacled
flying fox is thought to be an important long-distance spreader of
seeds of rainforest trees. Spectacled Flying Fox is considered a
vulnerable species.
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Types of Bats in Australia: Grey headed Flying Fox
Grey-headed Flying Fox (Pteropus poliocephalus) is
found along the eastern and southern coast of Australia, between Cairns
in the north and Victoria
– South
Australia border in the south. It roosts in
forests and mangroves, and feeds on blossoms and fruit in groups up to
10. It has got a shaggy fur, dark brown on the back, and grey on the
face and belly. Around the neck, it has a reddish yellow ring. It can
weigh up to 1000g and its wingspan can be longer than 1m. Grey-headed
Flying Fox is a vulnerable species.
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Types of Bats in Australia: Little Red Flying Fox
Little Red Flying Fox (Pteropus scapulatus) is the
most common
and
widespread of Australian megabats. It is found in most of New
South Wales, Queensland and Northern
Territory, and in northern parts of
Victoria and Western
Australia. It is also the smallest of
flying foxes, weighing up to 600g and having a wingspan less than 1m.
It is reddish brown with wings that look translucent when it is flying.
It lives in forests, woodland and mangroves, and eats eucalypt flowers,
leaves, sap, bark and insects.
Some good places
to watch flying foxes are Daintree
National Park in far north Queensland and Kakadu
National Park in Northern Territory. There are two more
species of
megabats in Australia, but they are not
called flying foxes. Both are small.
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Types of Bats in
Australia: Eastern Tube nosed Bat
Eastern Tube Nosed Bat (Nyctimene robinsoni) weighs
up to 50g,
has a
grey fur, brown wings with yellow dots, and tubular nostrils. It roosts
alone in rainforests or eucalypt forests and eats fruits and blossoms.
It is found along the eastern coast of Australia between Byron
Bay in New South Wales and the tip of Cape
York in north
Queensland.
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Types of
Bats in Australia: Common Blossom bat
Common Blossom Bat (Syconycteris australis) is the
smallest megabat – it weighs 26g. It is a reddish brown bat that roosts
alone in dense vegetation in rainforest, eucalypt forest and heathland,
where it eats nectar. Like the Eastern Tube Nosed Bat, it is found
along Australia’s eastern coast, but its distribution extends a bit
further south –
between Cape
York in the north and Newcastle in the south.
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Australian Microbats
As in some other groups of Australian animals (e. g. marsupials),
in bats the larger species are
herbivores and the smaller ones are carnivores. Microbats are nocturnal
predators and live either alone or in groups but they don’t hang off
trees. During the day they roost in caves, tree hollows, tunnels, or
abandoned mines. Microbats’ eyes are very small. They don’t rely on
eyesight for finding their prey, instead they send out sound pulses
between 5 and 200 kHz and pick them up with their large ears as they
bounce back, telling the bat the location, size and moving speed and
direction of its prey. Microbats need a lot of energy to fly and to
replace the body heat that goes out through the large wing and ear
surfaces. A microbat can eat 50% of its body weight every night. But
during the winter the food is scarce and some species of microbats
migrate,
others hibernate.
Good places to see microbats are Jenolan
Caves in New
South Wales, Undara Lava Tubes in Queensland, Litchfield
National Park in Northern Territory, and
Tunnel Creek National Park in Western Australia.
Types of Bats in Australia: Ghost Bat
Ghost Bat (Macroderma gigas)
is Australia’s largest microbat. It weighs up to 165g, has a large grey
body, and large eyes and ears. It roosts in caves and crevices and eats
insects,
frogs, reptiles, birds and small mammals.
It’s found in most of north and inland
Queensland, as well as the Top End of Northern Territory.
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Types of Bats in Australia: Diadem Leafnosed bat
Diadem Leafnosed Bat (Hipposideros diadema)
is a grey to yellowish brown bat that weighs max 50g. It has got dark
legs, tiny eyes and pointed ears, and it eats insects. It is found in
the Top End of Northern Territory, and on the Cape York peninsula in far
north Queensland, where it lives in rainforests
and eucalypt forests. It roosts in caves, mines and tree hollows.
Types of Bats in Australia: Orange Leafnosed bat
Orange Leafnosed Bat (Rhinonicteris aurantius)
is a brownish orange bat with dark brown wings and reddish limbs. It
weighs max 10g and it eats moths, beetles and other insects. It is
found in the Top End of Northern Territory and the Kimberley
in Western Australia, where it lives in
open woodland. It roosts in warm and humid caves in large groups up to
many thousand individuals.
Types of Bats in Australia: Common Sheathtail bat
Common Sheathtail Bat (Taphozous georgianus)
is a dark brown bat with ridged ears and long narrow wings and it
weighs up to 50g. It is found across northern Australia, except Cape
York peninsula in Queensland.
It lives in rocky country and roosts in caves, cervices and abandoned
mines. It feeds in flight (as opposed to some other, larger microbats)
and flies in a zigzag pattern when hunting. It likes to cling to rock
walls instead of hanging off cave ceilings as do most of other
microbats.
Types of Bats in Australia: Large footed Myotis
Large Footed Myotis (Myotis macropus)
is a greyish brown bat with large feet which are enclosed in its
membrane.
It can weigh up to 12g and it roosts in groups in caves, mines, tunnels
and buildings. It specialises in aquatic insects and is often seen to
fly near water surface and dip down to catch them. It is found close to
water bodies on the coastal areas around eastern and northern
Australia, between Mount Gambier in South Australia and Broome
in northern WA.
Types of Bats in Australia: Hoary Wattled Bat
Hoary Wattled Bat (Chalinolobus nigrogriseus)
is a small bat that weighs max 10g, has a blackish grey fur and a
rounded forehead. It catches insects in the air and on the ground, and
roosts in cervices and tree hollows. It lives in forest and woodland
along the eastern and northern coast of Australia, between Byron Bay in
New South Wales and Broome in Western Australia.
Note:
This site uses
British English, which is the English we use in Australia. You will
find words like "traveller", "harbour" and "realise", and they are all
correct in the language used in Australia.
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