Sunday, April 28, 2013

What is a flying fox?


A flying fox is a kind of large bat, not a fox.  It is the largest bat in the world.  Its wingspread may be more than four feet, and its hairy body may be a foot long and weigh as much as three pounds.

The flying fox gets its name because its face and long, slender snout look like that of a fox.  Flying foxes are also called fruit bats.  Flying foxes live in most tropical parts of the world, where fruit is continually ripening.

They spend the day nesting in trees, hanging upside down from branches with their wings folded around their bodies like blankets.

At sundown the bats leave their roosts and search for an orchard of ripe fruit to eat.  When fruit is hard to find, flying foxes live by fishing.  They skim over the water and catch fish with their feet.

Unlike other bats that must depend on the echoes of their own voices to guide them as they fly about at night, flying foxes and other fruit bats have good eyes, and guide themselves mostly by sight, just as you and I do.-Dick Rogers

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