Egyptian fruit bat

This is a good article. Click here for more information.
Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Egyptian fruit bat

Least Concern  (IUCN 3.1)[1]
Scientific classification Edit this classification
Domain: Eukaryota
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Mammalia
Order: Chiroptera
Family: Pteropodidae
Genus: Rousettus
Species:
R. aegyptiacus
Binomial name
Rousettus aegyptiacus
(Geoffroy, 1810)
Egyptian fruit bat range
Synonyms[6]
List
  • Pteropus egyptiacus Geoffroy, 1810[2]
  • Pteropus aegyptiacus (Geoffroy, 1810)[2]
  • Pteropus collaris (Lichtenstein, 1823)[3]
  • Pteropus geoffroyi (Temminck, 1825)[2]
  • Pteropus hottentotus (Temminck, 1832)[2]
  • Eleutherura ægyptiaca(Gray, 1870)[4]
  • Eleutherura unicolor (Gray, 1870)[3]
  • Rousettus unicolor (Gray, 1870)[2]
  • Pteropus leachii (Smith, 1892)[2]
  • Rousettus arabicus (Anderson and de Winton, 1902)[5]
  • Rousettus sjostedti (Lönnbert, 1908)[2]
  • Rousettus occidentalis (Eisentraut, 1960)[2]
  • Rousettus princeps (Juste and Ibañez, 1993)[2]
  • Rousettus thomensis (Feiler, Haft, and Widmann, 1993)[2]
  • Rousettus tomensis (Juste and Ibañez), 1993)[2]

The Egyptian fruit bat or Egyptian rousette (Rousettus aegyptiacus) is a species of megabat that occurs in Africa, the Middle East, the Mediterranean and the Indian subcontinent. It is one of three Rousettus species with an African-Malagasy range, though the only species of its genus found on continental Africa. The common ancestor of the three species colonized the region in the late Pliocene or early Pleistocene. The species is traditionally divided into six subspecies. It is considered a medium-sized megabat, with adults weighing 80–170 g (2.8–6.0 oz) and possessing wingspans of approximately 60 cm (24 in). Individuals are dark brown or grayish brown, with their undersides paler than their backs.

The Egyptian fruit bat is a highly social species, usually living in colonies with thousands of other bats. It, along with other members of the genus Rousettus, are some of the only fruit bats to use echolocation, though a more primitive version than used by bats in other families. It has also developed a socially-complex vocalization system to communicate with conspecifics. The Egyptian fruit bat is a frugivore that consumes a variety of fruits depending on the season and local availability. Because of its consumption of commercially-grown fruits, the Egyptian fruit bat is considered a pest by farmers. It also acts as a pollinator and seed disperser for many species of trees and other plants.

Taxonomy and etymology

Other pteropodid species

R. amplexicaudatus

R. spinalatus

R. leschenaultii

R. aegyptiacus

R. madagascariensis

R. obliviosus

Relationship of R. aegyptiacus within Pteropodidae (not all Rousettus species included) based on 2016 study of mitochondrial and nuclear DNA[7]

The Egyptian fruit bat was

first reviser of the taxon; he used Rousettus ægyptiacus and wrote that egyptiacus "may [...] be considered a slip or misprint corrected by the author himself".[10]

In 1992, G. B. Corbet and

ICZN Code, and changed the name back to egyptiacus.[11] The 1999 Mammalian Species review used egyptiacus as well.[3] However, Geoffroy's revision was supported in 2001 by D. Kock.[12] He notes that aegyptiacus was "accepted almost universally by the scientific community", emphasizing its use by Andersen in 1912.[12] Kock argued that even if it was an unjustified emendation at first, it became a justified emendation through widespread use, as the use of aegyptiacus was undisputed until Corbet and Hill (the ICZN Code also mandates that use of "æ" become "ae", hence ægyptiacus is no longer in use).[12][13] Kock also writes that since the Latin adjective for "Egyptian" is aegyptiacus, egyptiacus is a simple misspelling in the original description.[12] The Agreement on the Conservation of Populations of European Bats was amended to use the specific name aegyptiacus in 2003.[14][15] Books like Mammal Species of the World (2005) and Mammals of Africa (2013) follow Kock and use the name aegyptiacus.[6][2]

Two other members of Rousettus have an African-Malagasy range: the Madagascan rousette (R. madagascariensis) and the Comoro rousette (R. obliviosus). Based on an analysis of both mitochondrial and nuclear genetics, the Egyptian fruit bat forms a clade with the Madagascan and Comoro rousettes. The Rousettus lineage colonized Africa in a single event in the late Pliocene or early Pleistocene. Diversification into three species followed soon after, with the Egyptian fruit bat the first to branch—the Comoro and Madagascan rousettes have a more recent common ancestor with each other than with the Egyptian fruit bat.[16]

Subspecies

There are six subspecies of Rousettus aegyptiacus.[17][3][2]

Subspecies Authority Type Locality Year
R. a. aegyptiacus[17] Étienne Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire Giza, Egypt 1810
R. a. leachii[17] Andrew Smith Cape Town, South Africa 1829
R. a. unicolor[17] John Edward Gray Gabon 1870
R. a. arabicus[17] John Anderson and William Edward de Winton Aden, Yemen 1902
R. a. princeps[18] Javier Juste and Carlos Ibañez Príncipe, São Tomé and Príncipe 1993
R. a. tomensis[18] Javier Juste and Carlos Ibañez São Tomé, São Tomé and Príncipe 1993

Description

Main article: Megabat § Description
Closeup view of the Egyptian fruit bat's head

The Egyptian fruit bat is considered a medium-sized megabat. Adults have an average total body length of 15 cm (5.9 in) and an average wingspan of about 60 cm (24 in). Its forearm length is 81–102 mm (3.2–4.0 in) and its thumb length is 22–31 mm (0.87–1.22 in).

dental formula of 2.1.3.22.1.3.3 for a total of 34 teeth.[3]

The fur on its body is relatively short and consists of soft and sleek strands.[3][2] On its back, the fur's coloration ranges from dark brown to gray-brown, while the coloration on its underside is pale brown with a yellowish-brown collar around its neck.[3] Its wings are of a darker brown than its body and the wing membranes attach to the leg at the first toe. Males and females have similar coloration. Similar to other megachiropteran species, the Egyptian fruit bat only has claws on its first and second digits, while the other digits have extremities made of cartilage.[3]

The Egyptian fruit bat has one of the greatest ratios of brain weight to body weight of any bat species. It is well adapted to seeing in low light and possesses a highly developed sense of smell. The regions of the brain associated with sight and smell are similarly well-developed. Its eyes are large and well-developed, while its ears are considered medium-length. As in all megabats, the choroid of the eye (vascular region between retina and sclera) has tiny projections known as papillae, which is where its photoreceptor cells are located.[3]

Distribution and habitat

The Egyptian fruit bat is vastly dispersed across various locations and can be found throughout Africa, the Middle East, Pakistan, and the northern regions of the Indian subcontinent.[20] Other populations occur in the Mediterranean on the mainland coasts of Cyprus and Turkey. It is the only frugivorous bat species in Europe. Outside of its natural distribution, an Egyptian fruit bat was observed in the Greek island of Kastellorizo during a zoological expedition in 2017.[21] Usually the Egyptian fruit bat inhabits tropical rainforests, savannas, or other forests, and tends to live in large colonies that consist of thousands of individuals in their established roosts.[3] It prefers to establish roosts wherever there are plenty of fruiting trees nearby; most roosts are in caves.[19] When no caves are nearby, it establishes roosts in cave-like human structures, such as abandoned depots and hangars.[19][2]

Behavior and ecology

An Egyptian fruit bat clings to pieces of orange at the Cotswold Wildlife Park, England
An Egyptian fruit bat in flight in Israel

Diet and foraging

The Egyptian fruit bat is frugivorous, consuming mostly fruit,[19] and leaves.[3] It leaves its roost at dusk to begin foraging.[2] The Egyptian fruit bat has a flexible diet, consuming any soft, pulpy fruit from fruiting trees, comprising Persian lilacs, loquat, figs, and wild dates.[19] The type of fruit consumed is influenced by overall availability depending on the season and habitat type. Its dietary flexibility includes eating unripe fruits or those damaged by insects or fungi, allowing them to persist in habitats where ripe fruits are not perennially available.[20]

The Egyptian fruit bat usually makes multiple, short flights from its roost to various fruiting trees. It prefers to pick fruit and carry it back to the roost or another tree before eating it.[3][19] A study of Egyptian fruit bats in Cyprus noted that if Egyptian fruit bats are aware of an abundant fruit source somewhere, they will travel distances of about 15–20 km (9.3–12.4 mi) to reach it. It eats large quantities of fruit each evening, equivalent to about 50 to 150 percent of its weight.[3] While eating, it will hold the fruit tightly against its body to prevent theft by other bats.[3] Its intestinal transit time is rapid, with food passing through the small and large intestines in 18–100 minutes.[3][19] The Egyptian fruit bat serves as a seed disperser of large and small seeds. Seeds are dispersed 25–400 m (82–1,312 ft) away from parent trees. Even seeds too large to ingest are dispersed due to its habit of picking fruits in one tree and consuming them in another, where larger seeds are spat out.[22]

Egyptian fruit bats are ecologically important as

baobab tree, for instance, relies almost exclusively on fruit bats to pollinate its flowers.[3][23]

Mating, reproduction and life cycle

Young Egyptian fruit bat

The Egyptian fruit bat has two breeding seasons: the first is from April to August, while the second season is from October to February.

altricial at birth with their eyes shut until they are nine days old.[3] The female carries the pup until it is six weeks old, which is when it can hang in the roost on its own. Afterwards, the pup is left in the roost while the mother forages. Before the pup is left in the roost, the mother repeatedly transports the pup to the same tree and is left there for the night while the mother forages. The pup learns this location and visits it first when at about three months of age, the pup will leave the roost on its own to forage for its food.[27] They only become independent from their mothers after nine months, once they have finally reached their adult physique. Offspring typically stay with the same colony as the parents for their entire lives.[3]

In the wild, the average lifespan of the Egyptian fruit bat ranges from 8 to 10 years, while in captivity its lifespan is about 22 years with proper care.[3][28] The significant difference between the lifespan of Egyptian fruit bats in the wild versus ones in captivity is mostly because of the wild bats’ increased exposure to predation and vitamin D deficiency.[3]

Predators and parasites

The Egyptian fruit bat has several avian predators, including

roundworm Nycteridocoptes rousetti.[3]

Vocalization

A colony of Egyptian fruit bats in a roost at Ha-Teomim cave in Israel

Egyptian fruit bats, along with other species in the genus Rousettus, are some of the only megabats to use echolocation, though it is considered a primitive form compared to non-megabat species.[3][29] A few other megabat species echolocate via creating clicks with their wings.[29] It echolocates by emitting a series of sharp, bidirectional click pairs with its tongue and by altering teeth and lip positions.[30][31] The clicks are normally slow and constant, but speed up dramatically when the bat approaches an object. This allows it to effectively navigate in darkness.[32][33]

It also makes use of a range of vocalizations for communication, including grunts and screeches, to communicate with other bats within the colony. As a result, a large roosting colony can be a deafening cacophony. Additionally, according to several studies, it is thought that because of their constant exposure to thousands of other individuals, they can form their own language to interact with one another about specific topics such as food. Colonies of Egyptian fruit bats develop their own dialects, producing sounds at different frequencies.[34] Egyptian fruit bat pups acquire the dialect of their colonies by listening to their mothers' vocalizations.[34][35]

Relationship with humans

As pests

Since fruit bats also eat commercially grown fruits intended for human consumption, many of them are poisoned or otherwise persecuted and eliminated by farmers to prevent crop loss.[19] In Turkey, Israel, and Cyprus, farmers have poisoned Egyptian fruit bats via insecticides and pesticides. Other techniques used to kill the bats include using dynamite to destroy cave roosts, or fumigating cave entrances with sulfur to exterminate entire bat colonies.[19] While Egyptian fruit bats do eat commercially grown fruits, the percentage of crops lost to bats may be overestimated.[19]

In the 1950s in Israel, Egyptian fruit bats were declared pests, which led to an eradication campaign starting in 1958. Its roosting caves were poisoned with the pesticides 1,2-Dibromoethane or lindane, which not only killed Egyptian fruit bats, but many insectivorous bat species. Populations of insectivorous bats declined by approximately 90% in fifteen years as a result of the fumigation of caves, despite being protected under the Israeli Wild Animals Protection Law.[36]

As disease reservoir

The Egyptian fruit bat has been a suspected reservoir for several human diseases under

seropositive, but has not tested positive for the virus itself. Evidence that it or any other megabat species is the natural reservoir of Ebola virus is "far from decisive".[38]

In captivity

Two captive individuals on a skewer of fruit

The Egyptian fruit bat is well represented in

Southern US, competing with native animals and causing destruction to fruit agriculture.[40]

As model animals

The Egyptian fruit bat is used as a model animal in navigation research.

head direction cells, which track the orientation of their head.[43] Additionally they have vector cells, which contain a representation of the location relative to an important object.[42] The bats are of particular interest, because these three types of cells have been shown to represent location and direction in 3D.[43][47] Bats also have cells that represent the location of other bats, which researchers have called 'social place cells'.[44] This finding was published in conjunction with a similar finding in rats.[44][48]

References

  1. doi:10.2305/IUCN.UK.2016-2.RLTS.T29730A22043105.en
    . Retrieved 19 November 2021.
  2. ^
    ISBN 9781408189962
    .
  3. ^
    JSTOR 3504411
    .
  4. ^ a b Gray, J. E. (1870). Catalogue of monkeys, lemurs, and fruit-eating bats in the collection of the British Museum. Order of the Trustees. p. 107.
  5. OCLC 794056010
    .
  6. ^
    ISBN 9780801882210
    .
  7. S2CID 89415407
    .
  8. ^ Geoffroy-Saint-Hilaire, E. (1810). "Description des rousettes et des céphalotes, Deux nouveaux genres de la famille des Chauvesouris". Annales du Muséum national d'histoire naturelle. 15. Paris: 96.
  9. ^ Geoffroy-Saint-Hilaire, E. (1813). "Description des mammifères qui se trouvent en Égypte". Description de l'Égypte. Paris. p. 134.
  10. ^ Andersen, K. (1912). "Rosettus ægyptiacus, E. Geoff". Megachiroptera. Catalogue of the Chiroptera in Collection of the British Museum. Vol. 1 (2nd ed.). London: Taylor and Francis.
  11. ^ Corbet, G. B.; Hill, J. E. (1992). The Mammals of the Indomalayan Region: A Systematic Review. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Cited in Simmons (2005) and Happold (2013)
  12. ^ a b c d Kock, D. (2001). "Rousettus aegyptiacus (E. Geoffroy St. Hilaire, 1810) and Pipistrellus anchietae (Seabra, 1900), justified emendations of original spellings". Acta Chiropterologica. 3: 245–256.
  13. ^ "32. Original spelling". ICZN Code. 2000. Retrieved 13 January 2020. Special characters must be reduced to their basic letters (æ to ae, ñ to n, é to e) except in German ä, ö and ü published before 1985, which have to be corrected to ae, oe and ue (after 1985: a, o and u).
  14. ^ Hutson, A. M. (22–24 September 2003). Review of Species to be listed on the Annex to the Agreement (PDF). 4th Session of the Meeting of Parties. Sofia. pp. 1–2.
  15. ^ Resolution No. 4.8: Amendment of the Annex to the Agreement (PDF). 4th Session of the Meeting of Parties. Sofia. 22–24 September 2003. p. 53.
  16. S2CID 89415407
    .
  17. ^
    ISSN 0067-4745
    .
  18. ^
    doi:10.1111/j.1096-3642.1993.tb00217.x
    .
  19. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Albayrak, İ.; Asan, N.; Yorulmaz, T. (2008). "History of the Egyptian Fruit Bat, Rousettus aegyptiacus, in Turkey (Mammalia: Chiroptera)" (PDF). Turkish Journal of Zoology. 32 (1): 11–18.
  20. ^
    doi:10.4067/S0717-95022017000100040
    .
  21. S2CID 92438382
    .
  22. S2CID 21153090
    .
  23. ^ Markotter, W.; MacEwan, K.; White, W.; Cohen, L.; Jacobs, D.; Monadjem, A.; Richards, L.R.; Schoeman, C.; Sethusa, T.; Taylor, P.J. (2016). "A conservation assessment of Rousettus aegyptiacus" (PDF). In Child, M.F.; Roxburgh, L.; Do Linh San, E.; Raimondo, D.; Davies-Mostert, H.T. (eds.). The Red List of Mammals of South Africa, Swaziland and Lesotho. South Africa: South African National Biodiversity Institute and Endangered Wildlife Trust.
  24. JSTOR 1381058
    .
  25. ^
    PMID 31130455
    .
  26. S2CID 80913139
    .
  27. ^ Preston, Elizabeth (4 December 2021). "How Bat Moms Give Bat Pups Their Sense of Direction". The New York Times. Retrieved 6 December 2021.
  28. ^ Bat World Sanctuary: Bats As Pets
  29. ^
    PMID 15557022
    .
  30. ^
    PMID 29244805
    .
  31. PMID 29244805
    .
  32. PMID 1113042
    .
  33. doi:10.1163/156853907781871842
    .
  34. ^
    PMID 29088225
    .
  35. ^ Zimmer, K. (2018). "What Bat Quarrels Tell Us About Vocal Learning". The Scientist Magazine. Retrieved 2019-12-11.
  36. ^ Makin, David; Medelssohn, H. (1985). "BATS Magazine Article: Insectivorous Bats Victims of Israeli Campaign". www.batcon.org. Retrieved 2019-12-11.
  37. PMID 30085179
    . MARV RNA has been detected in various tissues, including the salivary glands, kidneys, bladder, large intestine, and blood, as well as the oral secretions, urine, and feces of infected R. aegyptiacus; the virus was isolated from oral and rectal swabs of those infected bats. This finding indicates that horizontal transmission to the reservoir occurs due to direct or indirect exposure to these fluids and that direct or indirect exposure could transmit the virus to other animals and humans
  38. PMID 26268210
    .
  39. ^ a b Bat Taxon Advisory Group (2015). AZA Bat TAG Regional Collection Plan (PDF) (Report) (3rd ed.). Association of Zoos and Aquariums.
  40. ^
    PMID 8903179
    .
  41. PMID 12533276
    .
  42. ^
    S2CID 186170563
    .
  43. ^ a b c Grant, B. (2014). "Bat Navigation Revealed". The Scientist Magazine. Retrieved 2019-12-24.
  44. ^ a b c Weizmann Institute of Science. "Researchers identify 'social place cells' in the brain that respond to the locations of others". phys.org. Retrieved 2019-12-24.
  45. ^ "Fruit bat's echolocation may work like sophisticated surveillance sonar". ScienceDaily. Retrieved 2019-12-27.
  46. S2CID 21953971
    .
  47. ^ a b Grijseels, D. (2019). "You live in a mostly 2D world, but the map in your brain charts the places you've been in 3D". Massive Science. Retrieved 2019-12-24.
  48. ^ RIKEN (11 January 2018). "The brain's GPS has a buddy system". medicalxpress.com. Retrieved 2019-12-24.

Further reading

External links
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Egyptian_fruit_bat&oldid=1219280198"