Lesser Naked-backed Fruit Bat

About this species

Diet

Fruit; native figs and Piper aduncum were staples in one Papua New Guinea study

Habitat

Foliage-roosting

Range

Indonesia and Papua New Guinea

The lesser bare-backed fruit bat is the smallest species in the genus Dobsonia. As in other naked-backed fruit bats, the wing membranes meet along the midline of the back, creating the bare-backed appearance behind the furred head and shoulders. Modern sources place it in Indonesia and Papua New Guinea. The species-level pages opened do not supply dependable measurements for its Sulawesi populations, so size figures from other Dobsonia or unidentified museum specimens have not been substituted (Plazi taxonomic treatment; Wikipedia general species account).

Radio-tracking research in Papua New Guinea describes Dobsonia minor as a solitary fruit bat that roosts in foliage rather than forming a large cave colony. In that study, native fig fruits and the introduced shrub Piper aduncum were staple foods, and tracked animals used defined home ranges. These observations show a fruit-eating, foliage-roosting way of life, but they come from Papua New Guinea and should be treated as species-wide context rather than a claim about local behaviour at any Sulawesi site (Bonaccorso et al. 2002).

Description: Wildlife of sulawesi guide, Wildlife of Everywhere (wildlifeofeverywhere.com); general species information paraphrased from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA)