The honor of being the largest bat on planet earth goes to the one and only Australian flying fox.
This giant bat looks like some monster straight out of an 80’s horror movie! With their giant wingspans, flying foxes are the world's biggest bats. Australia's black flying foxes are a prime example, with wingspans up to six feet (two meters)!
Amazingly, the Australian flying fox has a very unique and sophisticated vocal communication between each other with over 30 very specific calls that are known. Unfortunately for theses beautiful large bats, their numbers are dwindling in the wild as their population has went from millions down to only a few hundred thousand over the last 200 years.
The oldest ancestors of the genus Pteropus to be unearthed appear in the fossil record almost exactly as they are today, the only notable differences being early flight adaptations such as a tail for stabilizing.
The oldest megachiropteran is dated at around 35 million years ago, but the preceding gap in the fossil record makes their true lineage unknown.
This giant bat looks like some monster straight out of an 80’s horror movie! With their giant wingspans, flying foxes are the world's biggest bats. Australia's black flying foxes are a prime example, with wingspans up to six feet (two meters)!
Amazingly, the Australian flying fox has a very unique and sophisticated vocal communication between each other with over 30 very specific calls that are known. Unfortunately for theses beautiful large bats, their numbers are dwindling in the wild as their population has went from millions down to only a few hundred thousand over the last 200 years.
The oldest ancestors of the genus Pteropus to be unearthed appear in the fossil record almost exactly as they are today, the only notable differences being early flight adaptations such as a tail for stabilizing.
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Those bats are really impressive. 6ft. Wing span wow. Thank you for sharing this.