Salim Ali's Fruit Bat (latidens salimalii)

Salim Ali's Fruit Bat

Salim Ali’s fruit bat (latidens salimalii) is medium-sized as far as fruit bats go, having blackish brown fur on its head, lighter brown on the wing membranes and long fur, and a soft, light greyish-brown underbelly. Like its other bat cousins, it is a nocturnal creature, rousing itself from its roost and fellow bats to fly the night looking for fruits, though it occasionally may eat flower nectar. They sometimes eat insects, perhaps to supplement the protein in its diet.

While most bats use echolocation to find food sources, Old World fruit bats, like l. salimalii, tend to have larger, more developed eyes than their insectivorous cousins, using sight, rather than sound, to find food. While feeding, they can bite fruit while hovering, and may carry small pieces of fruit to a safe spot, where they will hang from one foot, holding the fruit in the other. They will then chew the fruit into a pulp, and press it against the hard palate and suck it dry. During the course of its feedings, it will frequently scatter seeds in a wide area, and pollinate various flowers along the way, promoting new growth, and keeping old growth fertile, making it a very valuable species, indeed.

Of the hundreds of species in South Asia, Salim Ali’s fruit bat has, quite possibly, the most peculiar distinction. It has the highest classification of protection afforded to any species (critically endangered), as well as being labeled as vermin, along with other fruit bats, rats and mice. Why is one of the three rarest

bats in the world labeled as vermin? Like most fruit bats, they sometimes visit orchards, who’s’ farmers believe them to be destroying their crops. The fact, however, is that they rarely eat marketable fruit, and instead eat over-ripened fruit that has fallen to the ground. The little research done on bats’ crop damage shows it to be minimal at most, with other animals actually causing the most extensive crop damage.

Another problem facing Salim Ali’s fruit bat is the mistaken belief that they hold medicinal value. In the past, estate workers would often kill them in the hopes that they could cure or prevent various illnesses. Another is their listing in Schedule V of the Wildlife Protection Act from India, where the bats reside in the Western Ghats region. While they are protected in Schedule I as critically endangered, they are classified, under the generic term “fruit bat,” as vermin, and thus, while legally protected, it is also legally in danger of persecution.

Luckily for the latidens salimalii grassroots efforts to educate locals about these creatures seem to be taking effect, as workers and estate owners alike realize the importance of the fruit bat to their very livelihood. It is thought that, without fruit bats, at least 134 varieties of common fruits and vegetables would never make it to our tables, as they either completely or partly rely on bats to help them reproduce. Truly, this little marvel of nature has a valuable role to play in our ecologies, as well as economies.

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Bibliography:
Chiroptera Specialist Group 1996. Latidens salimalii. In: IUCN 2003. 2003 IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. . Downloaded on 30 October 2004.
ARKive
http://www.arkive.org/species/GES/mammals/Latidens_salmalii/more_info.html

Down To Earth: Science and Environment Online “Bat Tracks” http://www.downtoearth.org.in/full6.asp?foldername=20020531&filename=life&sid=1&page=2&sec_id=8

Oliver Thatcher - Lubee Bat Conservancy http://www.lubee.org/about-biology.aspx

Guinness Book of World Records - 1993