MANILA, 17 September 2007 — A colorful new breed of flying fox with orange fur and three white stripes on its face has been discovered on the central Philippine island of Mindoro, the government said yesterday.
Flying foxes are a type of fruit bat. They are named flying foxes because of their fox-like heads and reddish fur.
The Philippine archipelago is a treasure trove for flora and fauna. Last year, a brightly plumed parrot and a long-tailed forest mouse were discovered in the vanishing rainforest of Camiguin, a volcanic island in the south.
A team from the Philippine Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) and the University of Kansas confirmed the flying fox discovery during an expedition to Mindoro, south of Manila, last year.
“A local resident of Sablayan (town) first described the flying fox in great detail to us, but we were unconvinced until the species showed up in our nets,” said zoologist Jake Esselstyn.
The flying fox, which researchers believe could be unique to the Philippines, has been named the Mindoro Fruitbat.
The scientific description of the new flying fox was published in the Journal of Mammalogy.
“This discovery is illustrative of how little we know about Philippine biodiversity and the need for continued research all over the country,” said Mundita Lim, chief of the Protected Areas and Wildlife Bureau of the DENR.
According to the environmental group Haribon Foundation, there are nine known species of flying foxes in the Philippines. It said flying foxes differ from other bats in that they settle under the sun rather that in caves. They perch on tall trees in lowland forests, live as a colony and gather in trees, called roosts.
“They normally sleep during the daytime unless disturbed, and go out to forage at night. They feed on fruits of forest trees, and are even known to eat fruits from our backyards and plantations!
“As fruit eaters, flying foxes are important dispersers of seeds, pollinators, and facilitators of gene flow of vegetation between island ecosystems. The extended time that seeds are retained in their stomachs aids long distance dispersal, which greatly contributes to forest regeneration,” Haribon explained in its website (http://www.haribon.org.ph). – Additional input by Arab News
