Rodrigues Fruit Bat (Pteropus rodricensis) Fact Sheet: Managed Care

(Todd Ryan, personal communication, 2019)

General

• Shy but curious
  • Adults spend most of their time roosting
  • When not roosting, climb, feed, fly (especially young bats), and frequently manipulate objects in enclosure
    • See Enrichment, below
• Adult males especially calm and approachable

Shelter

• Enclosure with roosting and flight spaces
• Structures for hanging upside down
  • Tree branches
    • Best to provide freshly cut branches; bats may damage live trees by stripping leaves
  • Plastic-coated wire mesh structures
    • High platforms, among branches or along low ceiling
    • Narrow mesh “ladders” allow bats to climb from floor back up to branches
• Environmental conditions approximate tropical conditions experienced by these bats in the wild (Rodrigues Island, Indian Ocean)
  • Temperature
    • About 24-27°C (75-81°F)
  • Humidity
    • About 55-60%

Diet

• Food in shallow dishes accessible throughout the day
  • New food offered 1 to 2 times per day
    • Fresh browse also provided (e.g., ficus leaves)
• Fresh fruits
  • Honeydew
  • Papaya
  • Apples
  • Bananas
  • Pears
  • Figs
  • Oranges
• Fresh vegetables
  • Romaine lettuce
  • Kale
  • Yam
• Protein sources
  • Ground “biscuits” formulated for mammals
• Young raised by keepers fed formula until weaned

Social interactions

• Bats huddle together to keep warm
• Males and females housed ogether
  • Both sexes territorial, males more so than females
• Males may fight during an initial period, when establishing territory boundaries
  • Stop fighting once territories formed and dominance hierarchy is established
  • Rub scent onto branches to mark territory
• Young bats more inclined to fly than adults
  • Young bats weigh less; easier to fly
  • Adults remain more sedentary to guard territory

Breeding

• Breed well in managed care
• Can be difficult to visually diagnose pregnancy in adult females
• Newborns that need to be raised by keepers kept warm in incubator during first weeks

Enrichment

• Objects to climb and hang from
  • Ropes
  • Chains
  • Hoops
  • Towels
  • Bat-shaped stuffed animals
  • Stuffed socks (“sock mom”) for young bats
  • Perches or platformes on hand-held poles used to move bats and aid in performing health checks
• Foraging enrichment
  • Fresh branches (browse) (e.g., ficus)
  • Small cage feeders
    • Bat must manipulate cage to retrieve food items inside
    • Hung where flight and hanging behaviors will be elicited
  • Juice in drip bottle feeder, in syringe (dribbled into bat’s mouth by keeper), or offered on spoon
• Opportunity for bat to temporarily move between (divided) enclosure spaces

A Rodrigues fruit bat pup being hand raised at San Diego Zoo Safari Park.

This 12-day-old pup (born via C-section on Jan. 11, 2017) uses its claws to cling to its “sock mom” during a routine feeding.

Image credit: © San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance. All rights reserved.

AZA (2000)
O'Brien et al. (2007)