Greater Short-nosed Fruit Bat (Cynopterus sphinx) lives in tropical rainforest across Southeast Asia. It feeds on fruits and nectar. Its conservation status is Least Concern.
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Fascinating facts about the Greater Short-nosed Fruit Bat
In Central India the species breeds twice a year: the first pregnancy runs from October through February/March, the second offspring appears in July. Gestation lasts 3-5 months, producing newborns that weigh about 13.5 g and have a 24 cm wingspan; by four weeks they double to 25 g and a 36 cm span. Females reach sexual maturity at 5-6 months, while males wait a full year, creating a strongly female-biased adult sex ratio.
The greater short-nosed fruit bat is the first bat species recorded performing oral sex: females lick the male's shaft in 70 percent of observed copulations. Each second of licking adds roughly six seconds to the total penetration time, and males never withdraw while the female is performing fellatio. This prolonged contact may boost fertilisation chances or help transfer protective antibodies, highlighting a complex sexual strategy rarely seen in mammals.
Beyond romance, these bats are ecological powerhouses: they eat more than their own body weight in fruit each sitting, dispersing date-palm seeds and pollinating night-blooming flowers across forests and farms. Their foraging can devastate crops, earning them pest status, and they may carry Japanese encephalitis, a serious human disease. Recently, they've also been seen eating soil, a behavior called geophagy, likely to supplement minerals or detoxify plant compounds, showing remarkable dietary flexibility.
A single adult greater short-nosed fruit bat stretches a wingspan of about 48 cm (19 in), while its forearm measures an average of 70.2 mm, ranging from 64 mm to 79 mm.
These bats live in tight same-sex groups of eight to nine individuals, but during the breeding season the roost swells to house 6-10 males and 10-15 females sharing a palm-frond tent.
Sources
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As dusk descends, the Greater Short-nosed Fruit Bat stirs, unfolding its delicate wings like a dark canvas against the fading light, and takes to the evening skies with a soft whoosh of leathery membranes. With an agile dance of twists and turns, it navigates the forest's verdant canopy, its large eyes shining like lanterns as it searches for the ripest fruits to savor, its tiny teeth and nimble tongue expertly plucking the sweetest morsels from the trees. In this nocturnal realm, the fruit bat reigns supreme, a whisper-quiet monarch of the shadows, its very existence a testament to the magic that unfolds beneath the starry veil of night.
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