Mariana Fruit Bat
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| Mariana Fruit Bat | ||||||||||||||
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| Pteropus mariannus Desmarest, 1822 |
The Mariana Fruit Bat (Pteropus mariannus), also known as the Mariana flying fox, and the fanihi in Chamorro is a fruit bat that is found only on Guam and the other Mariana Islands. Habitat loss has driven it to endangered status. Poachers and food hunters harmed this bat as well as other animals and natural causes.
Like most animals, the Marianas Flying Fox is a fruit eater and eats things like wild figs, bananas, guavas and papayas, etc.
The bat is a culinary delicacy by the Chamorros of Guam and is linked to neurological disease called Lytico-Bodig disease. Paul Alan Cox from the Hawaiian National Tropical Botanical Garden in Kalaheo, and Oliver Sacks from Albert Einstein College in New York, found out that the bats consumed large quantities of cycad seeds, and - like some eagles, which were shown to build up levels of the pesticide DDT in fat tissue - probably accumulate the toxins to dangerous levels.
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