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Mammal

Indian Flying Fox

Pteropus medius

हिन्दी: फल चमगादड़

IUCN: Near Threatened
Indian Flying Fox (Pteropus medius) photographed by Devendra Bhardwaj

Image: Devendra Bhardwaj · iNaturalist · CC BY-NC 4.0 · Kumbhalgarh, Rajasthan · Resized

Indian Flying Fox (Pteropus medius) photographed by Devendra Bhardwaj

Image: Devendra Bhardwaj · iNaturalist · CC BY-NC 4.0 · Kumbhalgarh, Rajasthan · Resized

Scientific name
Pteropus medius
Hindi name
फल चमगादड़
Family
Pteropodidae, order Chiroptera
Group
Mammal
Conservation status
Near Threatened

A giant fruit bat that plants forests by night.

  • Spot it Large bat with a fox-like face and a metre-wide wingspan.
  • Home Tall roost trees.
  • Food web Eats fruit and nectar and flies long distances.
  • Why it matters Spreads seeds and pollen across wide areas at night, helping forests renew.

Read more: Indian flying fox on Wikipedia

Sources and credits

Records and field notes

  • RajasthanDevendra Bhardwaj has 13 verified records of this species on iNaturalist in 2010, in Kumbhalgarh.[20]

Sources

  1. IUCN Red List of Threatened Species (species pages linked on each entry) (database). Global conservation status. Every species page was opened.
  2. Devendra Bhardwaj. iNaturalist observations and notes, with place and date (inaturalist.org/people/devendrabhardwaj) (field record). The observer's own dated records and notes, with places. Statements in his notes are his own and were not independently checked by KJVF.
  3. GBIF Backbone Taxonomy and GBIF species data (family, order, Hindi names, IUCN category) (database). Open biodiversity data. Used for classification, Hindi common names and the IUCN category where one is given.
  4. Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (opening lines of each species article, CC BY-SA 4.0). The link on each entry goes to the article (reference). Not peer reviewed. Only the opening description is used, and statements about origin or medicinal use are left out.
  5. Short introductions and key points written with AI help (Google Gemini and Claude) and checked against GBIF where possible (reference). AI-assisted text for general readers. Please check important details before relying on them.

The tag before each record shows the place it was checked for.

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