Scientists Shed New Light on Flying Fox, the World's Least-Studied Bat

We're learning more about the species that live on our planet every day and now, scientists have taken a closer look at the world's least-studied bat. Researchers have now shed new insights on the Mortlock Islands flying fox, a large, breadfruit-eating bat that's been largely unstudied for the past 140 years.

This "forgotten" species is native to only a few remote and tiny Pacific islands. As ocean waters rise due to climate change, it's very like that this species' habitat will be greatly affected. That's why it's more important than ever to learn everything possible about this particular bat.

"Very little is known about many of the mammals that live on remote Pacific Islands, including this beautiful flying fox," said Kristofer Helgen, one of the researchers, in a news release. "This study gives us our first close look at this remarkable bat."

This flying fox was first discovered in 1836 when German naturalist F.H. Kittlitz described the creature during an expedition to the Pacific Islands. Later, the species was described again in 1882 by British biologist Oldfield Thomas. Yet since then, the bat has largely been forgotten.

In order to examine this species a bit more closely, the scientists studied the skulls and skins of related flying fox species in eight different museums on three different continents. They found that flying foxes from the nearby islands of Chuuk Lagoon are best regarded as a subspecies of this new bat. This reveals that the Mortlock flying fox has a much wider distribution than previously thought.

The findings didn't only show a bit more about its spread, though. It also revealed how many of these creatures are left in the wild. The scientists found that the Mortlock Islands support a small population of 900 to 1,200 bats scattered across a land surface of only 4.6 square miles. In addition, they discovered that rising sea levels could very well pose a serious threat to this species.

"When we think of climate change having an impact on a mammal species, what comes to mind most immediately is an Arctic animal like the polar bear, which depends on sea ice to survive," said Helgen in a news release. "But this flying fox may be the best example of a mammal species likely to be negatively impacted by warming global climates. Here is a tropical mammal that has survived and evolved for hundreds of millennia on little atolls near the equator. How much longer will it survive as sea levels continue to rise?"

The findings are published in the journal ZooKeys.