Pteropus pelagicus

Appearance

The heads of the adults are creamy white, buff, or tawny in adults. The heads of the juveniles are grayish brown, lacking red or yellow highlights. The back and rump are dark brown, with lighter hairs interspersed throughout.

Individual hairs are 14.7–16 mm (0.58–0.63 in) long.

Range and habitat

P. Pelagicus is located on the Nomoi Islands, Chuuk Lagoon, and Namonuito Atoll. P. P. Pelagicus is found on the Nomoi islands, while P. P. Insularis is located on the other two sites. The range of the two subspecies is separated by 171 km (106 mi).

Pins are Wikidata “endemic to” fields. Orange dots, when present, are GBIF occurrence tiles — survey bias included.

In crisis

It is threatened by habitat loss. When they were still considered separate species, the IUCN assessed that both the Chuuk flying fox and the Mortlock flying fox were critically endangered. P. P. Pelagicus is threatened by climate change, as the atolls where they live are only 3–5 m (9.8–16.4 ft) above sea level.

Based on censuses, the population of P. P. Pelagicus was estimated at 925–1,200 individuals in 2004. Other threats potentially include introduced predators such as cats, rats, and mangrove monitors.

Pteropus pelagicus is Endangered on this catalog because that is the IUCN category stored on Wikidata. Confirm the official criteria and any later count on iucnredlist.org.

Sources

Written for this catalog from the English Wikipedia article on Pteropus pelagicus, Wikidata item Q125845288. Family and order context is original field-guide writing about the group, not a copied assessment of this one species. Wikipedia text is CC BY-SA. Not an IUCN assessment. Counts, when quoted, can change — confirm them on the recovery programme and on iucnredlist.org.