How Are Flying Foxes Classified?
Flying foxes are a common name for fruit bats, which belong to the Order Chiroptera and the family Pteropopidae. There are 44 genera in this family and, in total, these are made up of at least 173 species. This group is less numerous that the other bat families, which contain over 750 other species. The flying foxes include the short-nosed fruit bat Cynopterus sphinx of eastern Asia; the Egyptian rousette Rousettus aegyptiacus, which ranges over most of Africa south of the Sahara and from the eastern Mediterranean to Pakistan; the grey headed flying fox Pteropus poliocephalus of Tasmania, northern Queensland, New Guinea and nearby islands; the greater naked backed bat Dobsonia moluccensis of Australia and the Pacific islands; the hammer headed bat Hypsignathus monstrosus of Central Africa; the common long tailed fruit bat Macroglossus minimus of South-east Asia, Borneo and the southern Philippines; Pallas’ tube-nosed bat Nyctimene cephalotes of eastern Indonesia; the straw coloured fly
