Egyptian Fruit Bat
Place to admire: Tropical Paradise
Scientific name: Rousettus aegyptiacus
IUCN-status: Least concern
Habitat
The Egyptian Fruit Bat is found in the wild from eastern to southern Africa. In addition, this species lives in the western part of Africa. In addition, the Egyptian Fruit Bat occurs in the Middle East and some parts of southwest Asia. This Butterhound inhabits forests, scrublands, grasslands, caves, underground habitats, deserts and man-made areas such as tombs, temples, mines and tunnels.
Diet
The Egyptian Fruit Bat is a herbivore, particularly a frugivore. Its diet consists of soft fruits, flowers and sometimes leaves.
Natural behavior
The Egyptian Fruit Bat travels distances between roosting sites and food sources. Foraging for food starts after sunset and stops before sunrise.
This Egyptian Fruit Bat flies to a fruit-bearing plant, and searches on different branches for ripe fruit. It takes the fruit to the roost and will eat the fruit in the roost. The food the Flying Fox holds against its body to prevent the food from being stolen.
Social behavior
The Egyptian Fruit Bat lives in colonies. This Flying Fox communicates with each other as they hang out together in a “cluster.” Communication consists of grooming activities and vocalizations. They comb and brush each other’s wings, head and body. The colony communicates with each other in the dark with multifaceted and vocalizations. The vocalizations consist of a sequence of multi-harmonic low-fundamental syllables.
