Guam fruit bat
| Guam fruit bat | ||||||||||||
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| Systematics | ||||||||||||
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| Scientific name | ||||||||||||
| Pteropus tokudae | ||||||||||||
| Tate , 1934 |
The Guam Flying Fox ( Pteropus tokudae ) is an extinct Fledertier from the family of flying foxes (Pteropodidae). It was endemic to the island of Guam in the Mariana Islands . The type epithet honors the Japanese zoologist Mitoshi Tokuda .
features
The measurements are based on a male (holotype) collected in August 1931 and a female (paratype) collected in March 1968. The male has a forearm length of 95 mm. The female has a head-torso length of 225 mm, a forearm length of 95 mm, a shin length of 70 mm and an ear length of 20 mm. The weight is 151.8 g. The belly and wings are brown to dark brown with isolated white hairs. The coat and the sides of the neck vary from brown to light gold. The skull is grayish to yellowish brown. The throat and chin are dark brown. In addition to the adult animals, the skull of another, not yet fully grown, male exists in the collection of the American Museum of Natural History .
Way of life
Nothing is known about the way of life of the Guam flying fox.
die out
The Guam flying fox was considered a delicacy by the local islanders and was therefore hunted intensively. The last female was gathered from her roost on Tarague Cliff in March 1968. It was accompanied by a young animal that managed to escape the catch. An unconfirmed sighting is said to have taken place in June 1974. Surveys of local hunters in the 1970s revealed that this species is extremely rare. During an expedition in 1987, no more specimens were found, only the larger Mariana flying fox ( Pteropus mariannus ). Another possible cause of extinction could have been the reenactment by the brown night tree snake ( Boiga irregularis ) introduced in the 1950s .
literature
- Flannery, Tim & Schouten, Peter (2001). A Gap in Nature: Discovering the World's Extinct Animals , Atlantic Monthly Press, New York. ISBN 0871137976 .
- Flannery, TF 1995. Mammals of the South-West Pacific & Moluccan Islands . Chatswood: Reed Books, 464 pp. ISBN 0-7301-0417-6
- Simmons, NB 2005. Order Chiroptera . Pp. 312-529 in Wilson, DE & Reeder, DM (Eds.). Mammal Species of the World: a Taxonomic and Geographic Reference . 3. Edition. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, Volume 2, 2142 pp. ISBN 978-0-8018-8221-0
- Tate, George Henry Hamilton: Bats from the Pacific islands, including a new fruit bat from Guam . American Museum Novitates; No. 713, 1934 ( online )