Pygmy fruit bat
Species of bat
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The pygmy fruit bat (Aethalops alecto), also known as the grey fruit bat, is a species of megabat.
| Pygmy Fruit Bat | |
|---|---|
Scientific classification  | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Chordata |
| Class: | Mammalia |
| Order: | Chiroptera |
| Family: | Pteropodidae |
| Genus: | Aethalops |
| Species: | A. alecto |
| Binomial name | |
| Aethalops alecto (Thomas, 1923) | |
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| Pygmy Fruit Bat range | |
| Synonyms | |
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Distribution
Three specimens were collected in April 1995 from Bario highlands in Sarawak. A. alecto is confined to montane forest above 1000 m from Peninsular Malaysia, Sumatra and Java. In Borneo it had been recorded at Mount Kinabalu and Crocker Range in Sabah; Gunung Mulu and Bareo in Sarawak (Payne et al. 1985 ).
Biology and ecology
Two adult females and an adult male collected from Bario were in a non-reproductive condition. Kitchener et al. (1990) reported a pregnant female collected on Lombok Island in October. Hill (1961) observed pregnancy in February and May in Peninsular Malaysia. Medway (1978) recorded that the months between February and June was the breeding period for the species. This species appears to be confined to montane forest above 1,000 m (Payne et al. 1985).