Hix

Big-eared Fruit Bats

  • Media owner Hix
  • Date added
Saibai Island
March 2020
I can't see the ones at the back well enough, but the visible one (at front) is a Spectacled Flying Fox.
 
There aren't any Spectacleds in Torres Strait, only Black, Big-eared and Little Red. And the pointed ears are diagnostic for Big-eared. All the faces we saw were completely black.
 
I may have been the victim of some confusion!

Any Australian source I see says that Spectacleds are in the Torres Strait Islands, and my Menkhorst and Knight depicts and describes macrotis as being "uniformly dark brown" in colour.

However I just checked my Flannery (my SW Pacific one because I'm not sure where my New Guinea one is) and the description there is completely different - "brightly coloured ... [with a] ... strongly contrasting pale yellow mantle".

So I am happy to be corrected!
 
I should also point out that Spectacleds are reported to occur in Torres Strait, but a paper I read said otherwise:
A fourth species (P. conspicillatus) is also reported to occur in Torres Strait (Clague et al. 1999; Helgen 2004). However, our reviews of the literature and databases have failed to confirm any records of this species on the study islands.
……….. Lavery et al, 2012 - Terrestrial vertebrate richness of the inhabited Torres Strait Islands, Australia
 

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Torres Strait Island - Wildlife
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