The Fruit Bat

Jared Macmaster
Dr. Boyd Anatomy
8/19/11
The Fruit Bat

The paper you are about to read is a research paper regarding the anatomical adaptations between a fruit bat and its habitat.
First off, the fruit bat is a nocturnal animal, like other bats, and uses echolocation to guide itself in flight. The high pitch sound that echolocation functions upon is created by the larynx, or vocal chords, which send the sound in front of the bat. The sound is bounced back from a surface, and then received by the bat’s ear. Using this method, the fruit bat can sense where there is another object. Many people believe that bats use echolocation because they are blind, hence the popular simile “blind as a bat,” although this is not true. Bats use echolocation mainly for two reasons, One: It is very dark at night. And two: For communication between other bats. Fruit bats in particular, however, do not usually use their echolocation to find food, mainly because their food does not move. Instead, they rely on their sense of smell and sight to find their food, which is fruit.
Secondly, the fruit bat has very similar taste to that of human’s; they prefer sweet tasting, juicy fruits rather than smaller, tangy or bitter fruit. One interesting adaptation is that Fruit bats have large, sac like stomachs that will expand on one side if needed, and they need to eat a lot due to their relatively large size. Fruit bats drink in a strange way. Instead of stopping at a water hole and taking a drink for a while, they swoop down, hold water in their mouth, and drink as they are flying back up.
Another adaptation is an environmental one; Fruit bats have a couple techniques for warm and cold weather. One technique for when it becomes very warm, Fruit bats will act in a way that is equal to perspiration, they will lick themselves until they have taken the equivalent of a bath. The other adaptation is for cold weather. Fruit bats will tuck as much of their body as they can into their wings, wrapping themselves like a blanket. Their cold breath becomes a source of heat for the bat. The other adaptation for the cold is huddling together with other Fruit bats, an activity that is common in many, if not all, mammals.
As well as large, expandable stomachs, Fruit bats also have long thin tongues. They use them for licking juice out of the inside of a fruit as well as for drinking nectar from a plant. While drinking nectar, Fruit bats will pick up some pollen, which assists plants in pollination. Although Fruit bats help in pollination, they often will chew the pedals off of a plant, thus causing the plant to die. Fruit bats also have another oral adaptation; flat molars in the back of their mouths used for crushing soft fruits.
So in conclusion, Fruit bats are different from any other carnivorous bats. They are larger than most bats, have long tongues, and have expandable stomachs for containing large amounts of food. The adaptations are environmental as well as anatomical, and are definitely needed for survival.