Bats of Southern and Central Africa. Ara Monadjem

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      Description: Eidolon helvum is a very large fruit bat with a mass of around 170 g, making it the second-largest fruit bat on mainland Africa after Hypsignathus monstrosus. The pelage is typically pale yellow-brown to orange-brown with paler underparts. A distinct orange collar is present in most individuals that extends from the sides of the neck to the throat. The wings are dark brown and contrast strikingly with the pale underparts. There are no shoulder epaulettes and the ears do not have a patch of white fur at their base. The muzzle is dog-like and rather short and broad. A short tail is present.

      The skull is massive with moderate zygomatic arches. The cranium is distinctly arched with the rostrum tapering rapidly anteriorly from orbit and the posterior braincase strongly deflected downwards. The auditory meatus opens into a long neck (Rosevear 1965). The sagittal crest is low, but usually clearly visible. The lambdoid crest is fairly well developed. The palatal ridges have been illustrated by Happold (1987). The dental formula is 2132/2133 = 34 with the first upper premolar reduced in size, but larger than the incisors.

      Key identification features: The combination of large size (FA > 105 mm) and lack of white ear patches separates Eidolon from all other African fruit bats. Its pale colouring with contrasting dark wings distinguishes it from very large specimens of Rousettus (which can marginally overlap in size with juvenile E. helvum). Hypsignathus monstrosus is similar in size, but has white patches of fur at the base of the ears and a cylindrical muzzle.

      Echolocation call: This bat does not echolocate.

      Distribution, habitat and roosting: Eidolon helvum occurs widely in the region as a non-breeding migrant. There are numerous individual records from the central plateaus of South Africa and Namibia. The species has also been widely recorded in Zimbabwe, Zambia, southern DRC and Malawi. There are scattered records from western Angola. The type specimen is from Senegal.

      This species is relatively well represented in museums, with more than 100 specimens examined for this book.

      Little is known about its roosting behaviour across the region. Two large colonies have been described from southern Africa: a probable breeding colony at Marromeu, Mozambique, that supports hundreds of bats (Cotterill 2001c), and a massive colony at Kasanka National Park, Zambia. The latter is the best studied population of this species. This site sees an influx of 1.5 million non-breeding bats between November and January (Sorensen and Halberg 2001), with significant local impacts on the ecology of the landscape (Byng et al. 2010). Based on four bats from the Kasanka colony radio-tracked using satellite telemetry, large-scale feeding and migratory movements were documented (Richter and Cumming 2008). Bats foraged at distances of up to 59 km from their roost. One migrating bat moved 370 km in one night, and one individual travelled a cumulative 2,518 km in 149 days. This Kasanka population depends critically on a functional network of roosting and foraging sites, and intact fruit-producing woodlands, throughout Zambia and the DRC.

      The diet of E. helvum, when resident in Kasanka, includes the fruits of savanna trees – Parinari curatellifolia, three species of Syzygium, and four species of Uapaca (Richter and Cumming 2006). They also forage on the flowers of Isoberlinia angolensis; this species of Fabaceae occurs widely across the mesic miombo woodlands, and its phenology is unusual as it flowers in mid-summer, which suggests a co-evolutionary relationship with pteropid bats (F. Willems, Ecologist, Kasanka National Park, personal communication December 2014). Eidolon helvum has come under intense pressure from humans, who hunt it for food across tropical Africa, as well as recent persecution related to its perceived role in the transmission of diseases, especially Ebola (Peel et al. 2013, 2017, Hayman and Peel 2016, Hayman et al. 2012).