Insular flying fox
species of mammal
The insular flying fox or Pacific flying fox (Pteropus tonganus) is a species of flying fox in the family Pteropodidae. It is geographically widespread, the most widespread flying fox in the Pacific: it is found in American Samoa, the Cook Islands, Fiji, New Caledonia, Niue, Papua New Guinea, Samoa (where it is called pe'a fanua, pe'a fai and taulaga), the Solomon Islands, Tonga, and Vanuatu.
History
Archaeologists on an excavation site at Rurutu announced in 2006 some important fossil finds:
Five bones, representing one adult of the Pacific Flying Fox, Pteropus tonganus, were recovered from an archaeological site on Rurutu (151[degrees] 210 W, 22[degrees] 270'S), Austral Islands, French Polynesia, making this the most eastern extension of the species. For the first time, flying fox bones from cultural deposits were directly dated by accelerator mass spectrometry, yielding an age of death between A.D. 1064 and 1155. Their stratigraphic position in an Archaic period archaeological site and the absence of bones in the late prehistoric to historic layers point to extirpation of the species. No flying fox bones were found in prehuman deposits and human transport of the species cannot be ruled out.
Description
The range of coloration in this bat species varies somewhat. Its back is described as black or seal brown; its mantle has been called orange, yellow, cream buff, and tawny. This bat lacks an interfemoral membrane; its forearms and tibia are bare, and the fur of the males is described as "stiff, short, oily hairs".
In flight, their outstretched wings appear a translucent dark brown when viewed from below.
The public source identifies “Insular flying fox” as species of mammal. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Insular, flying and species.
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A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “Insular flying fox”, the useful work is to connect “species of mammal” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.
Stable identifiers, scientific names and standards terminology offer the best bridge between this overview and specialist evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Feb 18, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1766941. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 2006, 1064 and 1155.
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This entry incorporates text from “Insular flying fox” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.