Spectacled Flying-fox

© Mnolf

Scientific Name: Pteropus conspicillatus

Conservation Status: Least Concern
     
Range: Found in northern Queensland from Hinchinbrook Island to Cooktown, including Atherton and Windsor Tablelands, Charters Towers. Cape York Peninsula, Torres Straits Islands and limited in Indonesia and New Guinea.

Description: A large black with pale yellow rings of fur around the eyes. The mantle is also pale yellow in colour across the backs of their necks and shoulders. Sometimes found with pale yellow on the mussel and tops of the head. Legs are furred to the knee.
      
Life Span: Up to 17 years in captivity
 
Adult Weight: 800 - 950gms

Forearm Length: 18.0 - 18.3mm

Body Length: 225 - 250mm      

Roosting Preference: Unlikely to be found roosting with other species of bats, the Spectacled flying-fox camps in numbers of many hundreds to thousands in rainforests and evergreen forest trees. They can also be found roosting in Mangroves, Paper-Bark, Acacia and Eucalypt forests.     

Diet: Known to eat up to 35 different types of rainforest fruit, including Ficus, Terminalia, Syzgium, Eugenia and Eucalypt blossoms. Ablizia genus of plants have been eating and fibre is extracted. Light coloured fruit is preferred to darker colours. being easier to spot from the air at night. They are defensive while feeding and will chase off invading bats.

They have been observed landing on the ground to eat fallen fruit after server weather and have also been seen eating scarab beetles. Extracting the exoskeleton like pulp after thoroughly chewing. Strangely enough, they have also drunk sea water.

Reproduction: Mating takes place mainly in March - April. Gestation lasts for 27 weeks and a single pup is born between October - December. Twins have been recorded. 

For the first 4 weeks of life the pup clings to it's mother while she forages for food. After this they are left behind once they are able to thermo-regulate under the watchful eye of elder camp members. 

As the juveniles grow and practise flying nightly until they are able to follow the adults. They are left together in an area until returning with their mother in the early hours of the morning.

At around 5 months, mothers begin weaning from March - to May. Once weaning is completed, they move to an area of camp surrounded by other's their age.

Sexual maturity is reached between 1-4 years of age . Pups born to young females, usually to not survive.