2 Answers

Flying foxes do not naturally eat fruit at all. They like and eat the nectar from the flowers in the forest. They have very large tongues for this job. They only attack fruit trees when the surrounding trees have been cut down and they can no longer feed themselves. They do not eat the fibre from the fruit they only chew it and spit it out. They are now living in larger groups because of habitat destruction, so it appears that there are many more. But this is false. They are dying out at a rapid rate, and in Australia we are caring for the injured and then release them. I should know because I have been a flying fox carer for many years.

There are smaller varieties of bats which are called microbats. They mostly live on mosquitoes and other small insects

They are also called fruit bats because they look like dark fruit hanging in trees. Unfortunately this name gives the impression that they are big fruit eaters but in fact these they concentrate more on nectar and pollen. People are just more likely to notice what they are eating when it is fruit, because we like to eat fruit too.