The Philippine naked-backed fruit bat or Philippine bare-backed fruit bat (''Dobsonia chapmani'') is a megabat that mostly lives on Negros Island. Two small populations were also found on Cebu Island in the Philippines. Like other bare-backed fruit bats, its wings meet along the midline of their bodies, making it a very agile flier. It roosted in caves, in areas where little light penetrated the gloom. It was so abundant once that it left piles of

guano Guano (Spanish from qu, wanu) is the accumulated excrement of seabirds or bats. As a manure, guano is a highly effective fertilizer due to the high content of nitrogen, phosphate, and potassium, all key nutrients essential for plant growth. G ...

, which were used by miners as fertilizer. By the mid-1980s, the lowland forest was replaced by sugar cane plantations and the bat vanished. In 1996 the species was declared extinct by the

IUCN The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN; officially International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources) is an international organization working in the field of nature conservation and sustainable use of natu ...

, as none had been sighted since 1964, but the bat was rediscovered in 2000. The species now survives in very small numbers. The bat lives in caves and comes out at night to eat fruits from local rainforests. After the forests were cut down to make way for sugar plantations the bat population dropped drastically, and the few remaining ones are still hunted for their meat. Now the bats reside in the few areas of remaining forest, and if these are cut down, the species is likely to go extinct. The forest where the bats live in Cebu is protected in that it cannot be cut down, but there are no conservation measures on

Negros Negros is the fourth largest and third most populous island in the Philippines, with a total land area of . Negros is one of the many islands of the Visayas, in the central part of the country. The predominant inhabitants of the island region a ...

Physical description

''Dobsonia chapmani'' is a large fruit bat that lives in Southeastern Asia in the Philippines and the surrounding islands.Johanna Hamburger (2010-10-25
Petition to list 15 bat species under the Endangered Species Act (16 U.S.C. §§ 1531 et seq.)
wildearthguardians.org It measures 218–221 mm from nose to tail and weighs 125–143 g. The wings of this bat connect to the midline of the back giving it a naked/furless appearance.Synopsis of Philippine Mammals
The Field Museum (2010)

Group size

The density of this species is unknown; in the past, the size of the colonies would rarely exceed 300-400 individuals.

Habitat

The bat prefers limestone caves in the forest. The forest habitats, consist of naturally open and shrubby native vegetation such as: batino (''

Alstonia macrophylla ''Alstonia macrophylla'', the hard alstonia, hard milkwood or big-leaved macrophyllum, is a species of plant in the family Apocynaceae. Distribution It is native to Indonesia (Kalimantan and Sulawesi), Malaysia, the Philippines ( Tagalog: ''bati ...

''), hindunganon (''Macaranga'' sp.), tubug ('' Ficus septica''), and matamban (''Mallotus'' sp.), which grow on steep slopes. For food, the bat also utilizes the surrounding agricultural clearings that are planted with abacá (''Musa textiles''), gabi (''

Colocasia esculenta Taro () (''Colocasia esculenta)'' is a root vegetable. It is the most widely cultivated species of several plants in the family Araceae that are used as vegetables for their corms, leaves, and petioles. Taro corms are a food staple in African ...

''), and coconuts ('' Cocos nucifera''). Only about 60 ha. remain of forested land for this species, all of which is outside of the protected

Central Cebu National Park Central is an adjective usually referring to being in the center of some place or (mathematical) object. Central may also refer to: Directions and generalised locations * Central Africa, a region in the centre of Africa continent, also known ...

Diet

As the name implies this species eats many kinds of fruit, so they act as an important species for seed dispersal.

Conservation

The species was previously thought to be extinct due to three common threats. The first was overharvesting for meat due to its large size. The second was deforestation, which was inevitable because of the growing human population. The last factor was the lack of protection for the habitat of this species, except for a few minor areas in the Carmen municipality. Climate change may disrupt breeding seasons and affect the limited habitat of the species and it may also be threatened by low

genetic diversity Genetic diversity is the total number of genetic characteristics in the genetic makeup of a species, it ranges widely from the number of species to differences within species and can be attributed to the span of survival for a species. It is dis ...

due to the

population bottleneck A population bottleneck or genetic bottleneck is a sharp reduction in the size of a population due to environmental events such as famines, earthquakes, floods, fires, disease, and droughts; or human activities such as specicide, widespread violen ...

that occurs at low population density.L.-M. J., Pedregosa M. G. and Rabor Paguntalan (1952) “The Philippine Bare-Backed Fruit Bat Dobsonia chapmani” In the Carmen municipality on Cebu Island the local government has formed a group of environmental protection coordinators who patrol and report violations in the habitat of the Philippines naked backed fruit bat. The duty of these coordinators is to survey cave "sanctuaries", as named by the municipal government, and report changes in the habitat and hunting of bats. A reforestation project is underway as well. Many other towns are following in Carmen's footsteps by becoming proactive in saving this bat. There is also a law that applies to both of the islands, which is the Republic Act 9147 or the Wildlife Resources Conservation and Protection Act. This Act, among other objectives, conserves and protects wildlife and their habitat. This species is also known as a flagship species in many areas in which it lives. In 2013,

Bat Conservation International Bat Conservation International (BCI) is an international nongovernmental organization working to conserve bats and their habitats through conservation, education, and research efforts. BCI was founded in 1982 by bat biologist Merlin Tuttle, who ...

listed this species as one of the 35 species of its worldwide priority list of conservation.

Physical description

Group size

Habitat

Diet

Conservation

References

Further reading