Philippine Dwarf Fruit Bat

Haplonycteris fischeri

There are 25 species of fruit bats in the Philippines, most of which live for ten years or more and have very low rates of reproduction. Most live in social groups of related females.

In the lowland forest of Mount Isarog, and elsewhere through much of the Philippines, is a small fruit bat (Haplonycteris fischeri) that may hold the record for percentage of life spent pregnant. This little bat weighs only about 18 grams, and has a wingspan of about 30 centimeters. It flies at night beneath the forest canopy seeking out ripe fruits of pepper plants, figs, wild bananas, and other forest plants. Like many bats, and many other rain-forest animals, dwarf fruit bats are long-lived, probably reaching 12 years of age. Small groups of closely-related females (mothers and daughters, aunts and nieces) live together with a single unrelated adult male, often roosting inside an old hollow tree or beneath a branch draped with moss. As is typical of long-lived animals, these little bats produce only a single young each year. For the first few weeks after they give birth, the mothers actually carry with them when they forage for food. Remarkably, all of the females give birth eachyear within a period of a few days—not just all of the females in a group, but all of them inhabiting huge areas of the country. But they are not exceptional in that respect; other species of bats give birth in synchrony as well. What sets these bats apart is that the adult females all mate within two weeks of giving birth, and are pregnant for the rest of the year, every year. The females of this little bat are pregnant for 50 weeks each year, for their entire adult lives.

Original URL: http://archive.fieldmuseum.org/vanishing_treasures/V_FruitBat.htm