Pteropus scapulatus Peters 1862
Creators: name: Don E. Wilson
name: Russell A. Mittermeier
Publisher: name: Lynx Edicions
Year: 2019
Subjects: Biodiversity
Taxonomy
Animalia
Chordata
Mammalia
Chiroptera
Pteropodidae
Pteropus
Pteropus scapulatus

description: 137.
Little Red Flying Fox
Pteropus scapulatus
French: Roussette a collier / German: Kleiner Roter Flughund / Spanish: Zorro volador de Queensland
Taxonomy. Pteropus scapulatus Peters, 1862,
“Promontorium York [= Cape York, Queensland], Nova Hollandia [= Australia].”
Pteropus scapulatus is the only member of scapulatus species group. Monotypic.
Distribution. N, W & E coasts of Australia, going inland to subcoastal areas of N & E; also found on some Northern Territory, Torres Strait, and Queensland Is (Melville, Groote Eylandt, Thursday, Horn, Badu, Hammond, Muralug, Palm, Hinchinbrook, and Fraser). Historical records from S New Guinea considered extralimital and a record from New Zealand is a vagrant.
Descriptive notes. Head-body 122-200 mm (tailless), ear 28-32 mm, hindfoot 30- 43- 5 mm, forearm 116-143 mm; weight 258-600 g. Greatest lengths of skulls are 54— 59- 5 mm and tibias 61-66 mm. Eyes of the Little Red Flying Fox are moderately large, with brown irises. Ears are long and pointed. Entire body is a shade of dark reddish brown to light brown, with flanks occasionally browner and some darker brown patches on belly and chest. Mantle varies from cinnamon to burnt umber and darkens at sides of neck, fore neck, and throat. Base of fur is paler and ocherous bufty. Males have glandular neck tufts that are yellowish buff to deep tawny. There is narrow spinal tract in some individuals that splits mantle into right and left halves. Patch of light creamy brown fur occurs where wing membrane and shoulder meet. Head can be similar to pale reddish brown on rest of body but mixed with gray fur. Wings are brown and translucentin flight. Legs are naked. Canines and cheekteeth are much narrower than in other species of Pteropus, and other teeth are generally reduced. C' is long and only mildly recurved or straight, with narrow cingulum and deep, broad vertical groove on front face. C,is similarly long, with narrow cingulum, but is recurved. Canines are heavier in males than females.
Habitat. Wide variety of habitats including temperate and tropical forests, swamps, and semiarid areas. Feeding and roosting sites of Little Red Flying Foxes have been recorded in sclerophyll woodland, paperbark (Melaleuca spp., Myrtaceae) swamp forest, mangroves, bamboo, and occasionally orchards or ornamentaltrees. It is not often found roosting in urban habitats as often as other Australian flying foxes, but this has increased in recent years.
Food and Feeding. The Little Red Flying Fox feeds on nectar of dominant tree and shrub species in their distribution, and viable pollen has been found on its fur. Fruits, including cultivated crops, are rarely eaten and only when other food resources are unavailable. It forms large colonies near ephemeral flowering of Eucalyptus (Myrtaceae) and Melaleuca. It is believed to prefer foraging on native plants vs. cultivated plants.
Breeding. The Little Red Flying Fox reproduces synchronously throughoutits distribution. Males and females become sexually mature at c.18 months of age. Mating occurs in November—January when adults form large colonies, with males creating harems of 2-5 females in small territories that are actively defended from other males. Gestation lasts ¢.5 months and lactation 3-5 months. It gives birth to one young/year, usually in April-May in predominantly female colonies from which males have dispersed. Young are carried for a month and then left at the roost while mothers forage at night, returning at intervals to feed them. Young begin to fly and move between trees at roosting sites during their second month of life. There have been some studies that found populations with reduced reproduction during periods of nutritional stress, butit is unknown how common this is. It reproduces out of phase from other Australian Pteropus by c¢.6 months and is not dependent on photoperiod.
Activity patterns. Little Red Flying Foxes are nocturnal and leave roosting sites around dusk to forage; they return around dawn. During the day, they rest at roost sites and engage in typical pteropodine activity, such as wing fanning and occasional conspecific territorial interactions. Compared with other flying foxes, the Little Red Flying Fox roosts closer to the ground.
Movements, Home range and Social organization. The Little Red Flying Fox is generally gregarious and roosts in colonies of more than 100,000 individuals. Long-term colonies at the same roost site result in damage to roosting trees due to the weight of large numbers of individuals. They tend to roost closer to one another than other flying fox species in Australia. Because of ephemerality of flower resources, Little Red Flying Foxes are highly vagile and nomadic. Individuals have been recorded traveling several hundred kilometers between successive roosting sites. Nightly foraging distances from roosts to initial foraging sites are 4-23- 5 km, and multiple foraging sites can be used each night. Little Red Flying Foxes sometimes co-roost in mixed colonies with the other Australian flying fox species such as the Black Flying Fox (P. alecto), the Spectacled Flying Fox (P. conspicillatus), or the Gray-headed Flying Fox (FP. poliocephalus). Compared with other flying foxes, Little Red Flying Foxes form much more temporary colonies, usually lasting 4-6 weeks. They can displace other flying fox species from roosting and foraging sites by moving into centers of colonies and then pushing other species to the edges.
Status and Conservation. CITES Appendix II. Classified as Least Concern on The [UCN Red List. The Little Red Flying Fox has a wide distribution, broad range of habitat tolerance, and large population size. It faces no major threats, but conversion of foraging and roosting habitats for agriculture, forestry, or urban development has resulted in some loss ofits historical distribution, and it might be locally threatened. It occasionally comes into conflict with fruit growers due to crop damage, butit is not considered a serious pest. It is killed under license in Queensland and New South Wales as a crop protection measure under special circumstances, but there might be additional illegal killing that is difficult to measure. There has been an increase in persecution of flying foxes due to public concerns about diseases, smell, and noise associated with large colonies. Additional threats might include electrocution on power lines, entanglement on barbed wire or netting, extreme weather events, and mortality from Australian bat lyssavirus. Due to its nomadic nature, monitoring population trends and distribution is difficult. The Little Red Flying Fox might periodically be found in protected areas, but its yearly variation in distribution makes it difficult to plan conservation and management actions.
Bibliography. Almeida et al. (2014), Andersen (1912b), Churchill (2008), Corbet & Hill (1992), Daniel (1975), Eby & Roberts (2016), Lavery et al. (2012), Martin et al. (1995), Plowright et al. (2008), Simmons (2005), Vardon & Tidemann (1999), Vardon et al. (2001).
description: Published as part of Don E. Wilson & Russell A. Mittermeier, 2019, Pteropodidae, pp. 16-162 in Handbook of the Mammals of the World – Volume 9 Bats, Barcelona :Lynx Edicions on pages 136-137, DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.6448815