Little Mascarene flying fox
| Little Mascarene flying fox | ||||||||||||
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Little Mascarene Flying Fox ( Pteropus subniger ) |
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| Pteropus subniger | ||||||||||||
| ( Kerr , 1792) |
The mascarene little flying fox ( Pteropus subniger ), also known as the smoky gray flying fox , is an extinct species of flying fox that was found on Réunion and Mauritius .
description
The naturalist George Clark described the species in 1859 as about the size of a rat with a wingspan of 61 centimeters. The head, neck and shoulders were light reddish brown. The rump was whitish yellow. The rest of the body was dark gray. The ears were barely visible. Characteristic was a thick coat and a layer of fat, which suggests that the Mascarene flying fox was adapted to cooler temperatures at higher altitudes than the Mascarene flying fox ( Pteropus niger ), which was also extinct on Réunion .
Way of life
The Mascarene Flying Fox was strictly nocturnal. The explorer Jean Baptiste François de Lanux reported that these fruit bats slept in the burrows of rotten trees. A sleeping colony consisted of over 400 females and young animals, accompanied by a male. The diet consisted of fruits and flower nectar, especially of the species Foetidia mauritiana . The boys were born in September.
die out
Both the Mascarene flying fox and the Little Mascarene flying fox were popular prey in the late 18th century. The fat animals were a welcome delicacy. Loss of habitat, especially due to the destruction of the mountain forests on Mauritius, is another cause of the disappearance of the smoky-gray fruit bat. The Mascarene flying fox died out on Réunion around 1800, while it survived on Mauritius. The Mascarene Little Flying Fox was last collected in Réunion in 1860 and last in Mauritius in 1864.
literature
- Tim Flannery & Peter Shouten: A Gap in Nature: Discovering the World's Extinct Animals, Atlantic Monthly Press, New York, 2001. ISBN 0-87113-797-6
- F. Moutou: Note sur les chiroptères de l'île de la Réunion (Océan India) . Mammalia 46 (1): p. 35-51, 1982.
- NB Simmons: Order Chiroptera . in Wilson, DE & Reeder, DM (Eds.). Mammal Species of the World: a Taxonomic and Geographic Reference . Pp. 312-529. 3. Edition. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2 volumes, 2005. ISBN 978-0-8018-8221-0
- Anthony Cheke & Julian Hume: Lost Land of the Dodo , p. 263. T. & AD Poyser, 2008, ISBN 0-7136-6544-0 .
Web links
- Pteropus subniger in the endangered Red List species the IUCN 2007. Posted by: Mickleburgh et al. , 2004. Retrieved June 19, 2008.