Manila's Fruity Nightlife

Fruit bats in the city, plus a short Christmas message!

Cynopterus brachyotis. Photographed in Batticaola, Sri Lanka by Anton Croos. Image taken from Wikipedia.

Twilight falls on Metro Manila. Somewhere far from the bustling city, the dying sun summons the creatures of the night to feed. First one, then another, until finally an entire black-winged horde pours out of the caves and slumbering forests to a dim and foreboding sky. Some head north, others east to silent fields. But the most daring, or perhaps the most desperate, make their way south, to the distant glow of a teeming metropolis. And as the dreaming city twists and turns in its sleep, pale beneath the pallor of an ivory moon, the flock of beasts slowly descends, eager and ready to feast…on overripe mangoes and bananas? 

Wait a minute - these aren’t vampires. They’re fruit bats!

To picture one of these strange animals, imagine a puppy with wings. Stretch the skin of a baby Labrador until you form a membranous flap extending from one leg to the other. Straighten the ears. Hide the tail. Give the now odd-looking creature the gift of flight. Congratulations; you now have a pet that looks much like a fruit bat.

Like dogs, these flying frugivores vary widely in size, habit, and appearance. They range in size from around 20 grams to well over a kilogram. The largest can have wings as wide as the outstretched arms of your average human. Some sleep atop trees, others in hollow logs, still others in caves. All of them, however, are strictly herbivorous. They will eat only fruit and, depending on the species, the occasional flower. Which makes you wonder: how exactly do any of these animals manage to survive in the wonderful concrete wasteland that is Metro Manila?

Because while most fruit bat species live in or around the forest, a selected few can regularly be found in cities. I should know; just before the pandemic, as an undergraduate at the Univeristy of the Philippines Diliman, I used to tag along with several of my professors as they surveyed the campus to make an inventory of the vertebrate fauna inhabiting the campus. Around sunset we would set up mist nets – long, diaphanous sheets of nylon or polyester thread strung between two tall metal poles that, at night, become invisible to wildlife. We would leave to eat a quick dinner, then come back shortly afterwards to find several winged creatures entangled in the mesh.

We commonly found two species in our nets. The first was Rousettus amplexicaudatus, also known as Geoffroy’s rousette. This small, mouse-looking creature lives throughout Southeast Asia, from Myanmar to the Solomon Islands east of Papua New Guinea. It likes feeding on overripe fruit, roosts in caves, and is generally found in agricultural areas in the lowlands. It likes orchards, plantations, farmland; if you have a mango tree in your backyard, there’s a decent chance it will visit your garden. The other was Cynopterus brachyotis, a similarly sized species clearly identifiable from the rousette by the white along the edge of its ear. Cynopterus also has a shorter snout – the French bulldog to Rousettus’ chihuahua face, at least to my inexperienced eyes. Other people have also reported seeing Ptenochirus jagori, also known as the greater musky fruit bat, in campus. This bat exudes an oily fragrant substance from its shoulder that stains its fur a rich cinnamon brown.

After disentangling the tiny critters from the nets, we would take their weight and other measurements, such as forearm and ear length. We would offer them a sip of sugar water for the trouble, then release them into the night.

I only realized how diverse urban wildlife can be after that first evening netting bats on campus. We don’t pay enough attention to the animals in our cities; not a lot of people know that we have tree frogs in Metro Manila, and rat snakes, and blind snakes, and roundleaf bats and shrews, and over a hundred different kinds of birds: grebes, ducks, and doves, orioles, falcons, kingfishers, woodpeckers, and barbets. Whenever I tell a family member about fruit bats in the metropolis, they always react with surprise. Fruit bats? Here? How do they even find enough to eat?

It’s a good question. The human city is an environment that has never before been on Earth. To organisms who evolved over millions of years in tropical jungles, the smog and pollution of urban landscapes must seem as shockingly barren as the surface of the moon. And yet all these animals still somehow thrive in the city anyway. What do they eat? Where do they sleep? How do they find mates? Geoffroy’s rousette roosts exclusively in caves. There are no caves in Metro Manila. Does this mean these bats fly all the way from their subterranean homes to the capital to feed? Ignoring all the banana plantations and fruit-filled forests in between? What makes them go on such strange nocturnal commutes?

Who knows? I haven’t been able to find any paper focusing on fruit bats in the Philippine capital. It seems to be an open and promising area for research. So next time you glance up from the sidewalk and see a dark-winged shape alighting on a mango tree late at night, maybe wave a quiet hello. It wouldn’t do you any harm to lend some of your attention to these furtive creatures of the night.

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Thanks for reading! I wanted to take the time to wish my readers a merry holiday season, and to apologize for the delayed release schedule over the past month. It’s been a hectic time, what with work, winning a Palanca (!), and going on trips with friends for the first time in ages, and I haven’t been writing as much as I should have. I promise to back on track next year, which is coming in a few days, shockingly enough. Thank you so much again for following this blog and taking notice of my writing. More posts and more essays this 2024; that’s my New Year’s resolution for you.

Also, I just wanted to share how happy I am that I’ll be celebrating Christmas and New Year’s with family this December. I haven’t had a proper holiday season in three years. I spent 2020 at home because of the pandemic, and 2021 and 2022 in the hospital because of cancer. Having dinner at a big and crowded table, listening to my titos and titas talk over an open bottle of whiskey, unwrapping presents next to a Christmas tree; it’s small gifts like these that make the end of the year worth enjoying.

Cheers and happy holidays!

-Rio 🎄