Soft-haired fruit bat

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Soft-haired fruit bat
Systematics
Superordinate : Laurasiatheria
Order : Bats (chiroptera)
Family : Fruit bats (Pteropodidae)
Tribe : Actual fruit bats (Pteropodini)
Genre : Pteropus
Type : Soft-haired fruit bat
Scientific name
Pteropus pilosus
K. Andersen , 1908

The soft-haired fruit bat or Palau fruit bat ( Pteropus pilosus ) is an extinct fruit bat from the Palau Islands ( Caroline Islands ).

features

This species is only known from two specimens collected in the Palau Islands before 1874. The alcohol-soaked holotype, a young male, was originally in the Hamburg Godeffroy Museum and later became the property of the Natural History Museum in London . The skull was removed for study purposes and is so badly broken that it can no longer contribute to the explanation of this individual. The soft-haired flying fox was closely related to the Bonin flying fox ( Pteropus pselaphon ). In his case, however, the first incisor and the second premolar were longer, the fur much shorter, and the shin and forearm less thickly covered with fur. Only the dimensions of the holotype are known: the wingspan is 60 centimeters, the forearm length 151.5 mm, the shin length 63 mm and the ear length 25.5 mm. The second incisor is three times (2.5 times in the Bonin flying fox) as large as the first. The first premolar is twice the size of the third molar . The approximate length of the back fur hair is 20 mm (30 mm in the Bonin flying fox). The back and rump are chocolate brown and conspicuously speckled with long, shiny whitish-gray or beige-gray hair. The chest, belly and flanks are lighter in color than the top, with a tint varying between Kassler brown and Mars brown . The fur on the underside is thickly interspersed with long, coarse, yellow-brown hair. The coat and back of the head are deep yellow-brown. On the sides of the neck the color changes to a yellowish chocolate brown and on the nape to a smoked pork brown. The coat is somewhat thick, the sides of the neck and the nape of the neck are mottled with coarse, yellow-brown hair. The middle of the head is golden yellow-brown. The forehead, the top of the head, the sides of the head, the chin and the throat are dark brown, thickly interspersed with yellow-brown or gray-white hair.

die out

Extensive searches for this species failed in 1931. Why the soft-haired fruit bat became extinct is still not entirely clear, especially since the fruit bat species Pteropus pelewensis still exists on Palau today. The main reason could possibly have been the Palau Islanders overhunting.

literature

Web links