Natural History: Mammalia/Pteropidæ

by Philip Henry Gosse

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Family I. Pteropidæ.

(Fruit-eating Bats.)

This Family, though small in the number of its genera and species, contains the largest of all the Bats; some of them exceeding five feet in expanse of wing. They have cutting incisors in each jaw, and tuberculated molars, the crowns of which are longitudinally grooved. They are thus fitted for subsistence on fruits. The wings are somewhat rounded; the interfemoral membrane and the tail are always small, sometimes wanting. The thumb is large, the fore-finger short, sometimes nailed, possessing three phalanges, or joints, while the rest have but two. The head is long and pointed; the muzzle has no appendages, nor the ear a tragus.

The species, which are sometimes called Roussettes, are found in the islands of the Indian Ocean and the surrounding coasts, in Japan, Madagascar, and South and West Africa.

Genus Pteropus. (Briss.)

These Bats are often known by the name of Vampyre Bats, though the distinctive term Vampyrus is now applied to a genus of another Family. They are without any tail, and the interfemoral membrane is very scanty: the teeth are inc. 2—2/2—2; can. 1—1/1—1; mol. 5—5/5—5;=32. Upwards of twenty species of this genus are known, chiefly inhabiting the Indian Archipelago; their flesh is eaten, and is by some esteemed, and compared to that of Hare or Partridge in flavour.

The largest, as well as the most common in our collections and museums, is the species named the Black-bellied Roussette (Pteropus edulis, Geoff.), specimens of which have been seen which measured five feet and a half in spread of wing. ‘The fur of this animal, which is crisp and coarse, is of a blackish hue, deeper on the under parts. In the Moluccas, or Spice Islands, it associates in flocks, which by night commit great depredations on the fruit, and by day are seen hanging in groups from the branches of the trees. Occasionally they emit a loud harsh cry, like that of a goose. The flesh has a musky odour, but is esteemed by the natives; who, to procure it, take great numbers with a bag at the end of a pole.