PALAWAN FLYING FOX

(ACERODON LEUCOTIS)

Here’s another shy mammal on the lineup. Brown, relatively medium-sized (averaging at about nine inches in total height), and sans tail, these megabats treat themselves to figs whenever they can find them, as reported by Xtian Mack in a 2012 article for Vigattin Tourism. Also called Palawan fruit bats, they don’t seem to form very large colonies, but are predictably nocturnal. It appears to be difficult to make any real calculations about their population because they largely keep to themselves, but they have officially been listed as Vulnerable due to an estimated decline of about 30 percent within the last two decades.