Pteropus tonganus plays an important role in the ethnobiology of the Samoan people. The legends of these people say that the Queen, Leutogi Tupa’itea, had displeased her husband, the king of Tonga. She was barren, so he chased her into the crotch of a Callophylum inophyllum tree. The villagers promptly set a huge fire beneath the tree. Just as the flames reached the Queen, a large flight of P. tonganus put out the flames.
These bats are known to have high pitched vocalizations. Although not specifically mentioned in the literature, because of the way they roost so close to one another, these is undoubtedly some tactile communication between animals when roosting. The mother also has tactile communication with her offspring, whom she carries. There are reports of P. tonganus chasing one another in the context of defending a food resource, and batting at one another, indicating further visual and tactile communication.
Communication Channels: visual ; tactile ; acoustic
Perception Channels: visual ; tactile ; acoustic ; chemical
Because of commercial and subsistance hunting, this species is sometimes subject to overhunting. Because of their key role in local ecosystems, the potential damage to the area from decreases in population size are extreme.
Since 1989, P. tonganus has been listed in CITES Appendix I. The Appendix I listing provides for a prohibition on international trade in those species that are listed. However, the species is not listed as endangered, threatened, or otherwize at risk by the US Fish and Wildlife Service, or by the IUCN Redlist.
US Federal List: no special status
CITES: appendix i
IUCN Red List of Threatened Species: least concern
Because of their feeding habits, these animals can potentially do damage to crops.
Negative Impacts: crop pest
These animals are hunted by local peoples for subsistence. Such hunting is sustained year-round. They are also commercially hunted and overharvested on many Pacific Islands to supply an exotic food market in Guam and for medicinal puposes.
Positive Impacts: food ; source of medicine or drug ; pollinates crops
Pteropus tonganus is an important as pollinator and seed disperser in Pacific island ecosystems. Without them, it would be difficult to maintain community diversity, because of the disturbances by storms. These animals are needed to affect the regeneration of dominant forest trees. They are also necessary to maintain genetic flow between islands. The loss of flying foxes may affect plants that have coevolved with them. About 30 per cent of plant species on Samoa are totally dependent on flying foxes for pollination or seed dispersal. This is remarkably high compared with forests in continental areas. Flying foxes like P. tonganus are keystone pollinators and seed dispersers, and disruptions of their populations would result in chain reaction of other extinctions--of plants and other animals that are dependent upon them.
Ecosystem Impact: disperses seeds; pollinates; keystone species
Mutualist Species:
P. tonganus is a generalist among flying foxes, in that it consumes fruit, flowers, nectar, and pollen. Sometimes, these animals have been known to eat leaves.
Flying foxes swallow mostly the juices extracted after mastication of the fruit pulp and discard most of the fiber (in the form of an ejecta pellet). These ejecta pellets are made as a bat feeds on fruit pulp, compressing the fruit against the palate with the tongue. This action effectively squeezes out the juices, which are swallowed, and creates a pellet of dry fruit pulp. Some of this pulp is swallowed, but the animals spit most of it out.
Most fruit consumed by flying foxes have large seeds. These animals do not generally consume fruits until they are fully ripe, as that is when the fruits are most juicy, and easiest to smash up. They will consume unripe fruit in times of low availability of preferred fruit resources.
The plant species most commonly used for fruit in Samoa by P. samoensis and P. tonganus are Artocarpus altilus, Planchonella samoensis, and Syzygium inophylloides. P. tonganus is an extreme generalist and likely feeds upon more than 70 plant species. Because it has so many sources for food, this species is well prepared to period environmental disruptions, such as hurricanes.
After a major disturbance, such as a hurricane, these animals may eat leaves.
P. tonganus is extremely selective in choosing fruit within a tree. Animals will smell and occasionally bite many fruits before either eating. They may eat the fruit in the tree, or may remove one to eat in another location.
P. tonganus can be an agricultural pest, foraging on breadfruit, papayas, mangos, bananas and seasea fruits. Because they do not damage cash crops, however, they are thought mainly to be nuisances, and not damaging, by the Samoans.
Plant Foods: leaves; fruit; nectar; pollen; flowers
Primary Diet: herbivore (Folivore , Frugivore , Nectarivore )
Pteropus tonganus is restricted to islands in the Pacific Ocean. It can be found distributed widely from islands near New Guinea through the Cook Islands.
Biogeographic Regions: oceanic islands (Native )
Other Geographic Terms: island endemic
Pteropus tonganus lives in a variety of habitats. These bats are typically found in lowland or montane native forests. Bare, upper branches of very tall trees in mature, primary forest are favored as a roosting habitat. However, roosts can located on cliff faces above the ocean or steep mountainsides. These bats are also known to use coastal swamps, mangrove swamps, inland swamp and marsh areas, as well as agricultural areas and human residential areas.
Habitat Regions: tropical ; terrestrial
Terrestrial Biomes: forest ; rainforest ; scrub forest ; mountains
Wetlands: marsh ; swamp
Other Habitat Features: suburban ; agricultural
Survival rates of Pteropus in the wild are unknown, but the maximum life span for a captive animal is 31 years.
Range lifespan
Status: captivity: 31 (high) years.
Pteropus tonganus is a black-backed bat with a contrasting orange or yellowish mantle, resembling many other sympatric species of bats. The total length of these bats averages 231 mm, and the mass averages 565 g. The forearm length, useful in helping distinguish P. tonganus from sympatric bat species, is between 120 and 160 mm, and the ears are always less than 31 mm in length. Some researchers think that males grow to be larger than females, but further information on this possible sexual dimorphism is not present in the literature.
Separation of P. tonganus from a similar species, P. samoensis, is made based on tooth patterns. Pteropus samoensis has a shorter, broader rostrum than does P. tonganus. Pteropus samoensis is also much larger than P. tonganus. It is easily distinguished from P. tonganus both by its larger size and by the absence of the white fur patch on the back of its neck which characterizes P. tonganus. The presence of a buffy mantle on the neck and upper back of P. tonganus is the only diagnostic characteristic that distinguishes it from P. samoensis in the field.
Range mass: 191 to 1,099 g.
Average mass: 565 g.
Range length: 151 to 262 mm.
Average length: 231 mm.
Sexual Dimorphism: male larger
Other Physical Features: endothermic ; bilateral symmetry
Pteropus tonganus has few natural predators, partly because of its insular location.
Raptors and snakes are thought to be some of the major predators of flying foxes on islands. Peregrine falcons, Falco peregrinus, are known to subsist almost exclusively on flying foxes in New Caledonia , the Loyalty Islands, the Solomon Islands, and Vanuatu. Barn owls also have been reported to take P. tonganus.
Known Predators:
The mating system of these animals is not documented.
Adult females generally have only one young per year, with a gestation of 140-192 days (4.6-6.3 months). The timing of the breeding season seems to vary some geographically, and there are reports that these animals may breed year round in American Samoa.
Mothers carry their young infants with them, tucked beneath a wing. Observed copulations often involve females who are nursing young, indicating that there may be a post-partum estrus cycle.
Young begin to fly when they are approximately three months old, and when they are only half to 3/4 of adult size. Weaned individuals are often seen flying and foraging with adults.
The young are usually not weaned until they are 4-6 months old, and can remain dependent on their mothers for a year. These animals do not reach sexual maturity until they are 1.5- 2.0 years old.
Although males and females associate with one another for most of the year, after mating and becoming pregnant, females are known to separate themselves from males to form "maternity camps." When the young are weaned, the females may rejoin the males.
Breeding interval: These animals reproduce once per year.
Breeding season: Breeding season apparently varies geographically, with some populations breeding in June or July, and others possibly breeding year round.
Range number of offspring: 1 to 2.
Range gestation period: 140 to 192 days.
Range weaning age: 4 to 6 months.
Range age at sexual or reproductive maturity (female): 1.5 to 2 years.
Range age at sexual or reproductive maturity (male): 1.5 to 2 years.
Key Reproductive Features: iteroparous ; seasonal breeding ; year-round breeding ; gonochoric/gonochoristic/dioecious (sexes separate); sexual ; fertilization ; viviparous ; post-partum estrous
The parental care of P. tonganus as not been well documented. However, it is known that females provide their offspring with milk. The female carries her offspring when it is very small. Weaned offspring often forage with adults, which might be their parents. It is not known what role males of this species play in parental care.
Parental Investment: altricial ; pre-hatching/birth (Provisioning: Female, Protecting: Female); pre-weaning/fledging (Provisioning: Female, Protecting: Female); post-independence association with parents
The insular flying fox or Pacific flying fox (Pteropus tonganus) is a species of flying fox in the family Pteropodidae. It is geographically widespread, the most widespread flying fox in the Pacific: it is found in American Samoa, the Cook Islands, Fiji, New Caledonia, Niue, Papua New Guinea, Samoa (where it is called pe'a fanua, pe'a fai and taulaga), the Solomon Islands, Tonga, and Vanuatu.[1]
Archaeologists on an excavation site at Rurutu announced in 2006 some important fossil finds:
Five bones, representing one adult of the Pacific Flying Fox, Pteropus tonganus, were recovered from an archaeological site on Rurutu (151[degrees] 210 W, 22[degrees] 270'S), Austral Islands, French Polynesia, making this the most eastern extension of the species. For the first time, flying fox bones from cultural deposits were directly dated by accelerator mass spectrometry, yielding an age of death between A.D. 1064 and 1155. Their stratigraphic position in an Archaic period archaeological site and the absence of bones in the late prehistoric to historic layers point to extirpation of the species. No flying fox bones were found in prehuman deposits and human transport of the species cannot be ruled out.[3]
The range of coloration in this bat species varies somewhat. Its back is described as black or seal brown; its mantle has been called orange, yellow, cream buff, and tawny.[4] This bat lacks an interfemoral membrane; its forearms and tibia are bare, and the fur of the males is described as "stiff, short, oily hairs".[4]
In flight, their outstretched wings appear a translucent dark brown when viewed from below.[5]
The insular flying fox has a widespread distribution in Polynesia. Its range includes Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands, Samoa, Tonga, the Cook Islands, Tuvalu, Tokelau, Niue, Vanuatu, New Caledonia, Fiji, Wallis and Futuna. It sometimes migrates between islands and its typical habitat is tropical wet forests, mangrove forests and plantations.[6]
Like most species of bat, this flying fox is nocturnal and roosts in colonies high in the canopy. These bats favor lowland native forests, cliffs, islets, and swampy areas. The females give birth to a single offspring each year although occasionally twins are born.[6]
Insular flying foxes are frugivores and eat pollen and nectar. They are important pollinators of Ceiba pentandra and perhaps other species.[4]
The IUCN rates the insular flying fox as being of "Least Concern" because it has a wide range and presumed large population. It is hunted for food on some islands and it is also threatened by degradation of native forest for logging and for conversion to plantations and cultivated land. Populations appear to be declining but not at such a rate as to warrant placing the bat in a more threatened category.[6]
Bats are well known as natural hosts and possibly reservoirs of a large diversity of both RNA and DNA viruses, of which some are responsible for emerging infections and disease outbreaks. Faecal matter from four roosting sites of insular flying foxes in Tonga was sampled for viruses during 2014–2015. Analysis of the recovered DNA sequences revealed 48 single-stranded DNA viruses, including 5 cyclovirus and 14 gemycircularvirus novel species. Three of the viruses were sampled in consecutive years and six were found at multiple sites indicating that they are persistently associated with insular flying fox colonies.[7]
The insular flying fox or Pacific flying fox (Pteropus tonganus) is a species of flying fox in the family Pteropodidae. It is geographically widespread, the most widespread flying fox in the Pacific: it is found in American Samoa, the Cook Islands, Fiji, New Caledonia, Niue, Papua New Guinea, Samoa (where it is called pe'a fanua, pe'a fai and taulaga), the Solomon Islands, Tonga, and Vanuatu.
