The jungle growing up around the outside of the cone is home to thousands of enormous fruit bats. They live high up in the trees, circling over the jungle, sleeping in the trees and lazing around during the day. Walking through the jungle beneath them, you can hear them chattering to each other, see them stirring amidst the branches, and smell them in their abundance. At dusk they all fly out at once, darkening the sky like bombers in an old World War II news reel. The clumps in the trees are hanging fruit bats.
Fruit bats fill the sky above the jungle.
The local people call the bats paniki . On Guam, the fruit bats are called fanihi , and there are very few left because people have eaten nearly all of them. Fruit bats no longer darken the skies of Guam in the early evening. Unlike most bats, who are insectivorous, fruit bats eat fruit and flowers. They are resposible for pollinating the flowers of many trees and dispersing their seeds.