Flying Foxes, Australia, Megabats.

Flying Foxes, Australia, Megabats. 07/21/2010

There are some great painting and photography opportunities while we tour, I turn paintings into postcards. Check out the postcard printing opportunities if you are in the retail business.

People call them bats, megabats, fruit bats and flying foxes but they are not related to foxes, rarely eat fruit, and are totally different to other members of the bat family. They are similar to monkeys and humans than they are to the insect eating bats that live in caves or will enter homes here in the Atherton tablelands of Queensland, or blood sucking bats from central America.

They do not use sound, or, echolocation to “see” but have excellent eyesight like ours in daylight and they see better, than we do at night. They roost in trees.

There are Black Flying foxes and these are increasing, in numbers and there are little red flying foxes and a Spectacled Flying fox, mostly seen in the North Queensland ranges.

Because the flying fox population can carry a disease, never handle a Flying Fox. Any native animal can carry disease or cause injury if not treated properly. Flying-foxes are known to carry Australian Bat Lyssavirus, but the best available evidence suggests that this virus can only be transmitted to humans in saliva from an infected Flying-fox via a penetrating bite or scratch.

If people do not handle bats, there is little to no risk of infection. Simply touching or coming into contact, with Flying-fox urine or faeces will not transmit Lyssavirus to humans.

Flying-foxes may also carry antibodies to feared, Hendra virus. There is no evidence that Hendra virus can spread directly from bats to humans. Sick horses appear to have been the source of infection to humans. Spillover infection to horses and then humans is a very rare event.