Before and after the babies were born Dad and I would go for long walks each evening around the neighborhood. It was just before dusk and I noticed very large looking birds flying overhead while we were walking. Dad said those are not birds but bats. Their wing span was about 6 feet. So, these are very large bats. They are fruit bats and every evening they fly to the jungles to eat the fruit from the trees. I thought they looked awfully big and those points on those wings! On the island, many legends about bats flourish, he said. A popular legend involves a half-man who has wings and enters people's homes to drink their blood and steal their bodies. THE Agricultural Department at Washington is taking precautions to prevent the importation into the United States of any of the animal pests which are found in Porto Rico, the Philippines, and the other new colonies. Among these none is more feared than the great fruit bats which abound in the Philippines. A full grown specimen of the fruit bat measures five feet from tip to tip of its wings. The fruit bats live together in immense communities and feed almost altogether on tropical and subtropical fruits. They crowd together so thickly on the trees that sometimes large branches are broken down by their weight. The three-layered virgin forest of Subic Bay provides home to the world's largest bats: the giant flying fox (Acerodon jubatus) and the golden crown flying fox (Pteropus vampyrus). Over the years, these two species of giant fruit bats have roamed around the 10,000-hectare Subic Forest National Protected Area, which is considered the biggest roosting site of bats in the world. An ordinary giant flying fox weighs up to 2.5 pounds (1.1 kilograms), heavier than a golden crown flying fox. The golden crown measures six feet in wingspan, the largest among all bats. The giant flying fox and the golden crown are just two of the 15 species of fruit bats in the country. On any ordinary afternoon inside the Cubi Area of the Subic Forest, one can have a good view of the fruit bats which look like oversized black fruits hanging from almost bald trunks of palosapis, tanguile, yakal and apitong trees. These fruit bats stay in groups until they have eaten up all the fruits within the area. These bats disperse thousands of seeds a night throughout the forest floor. There are more than 300 plant species that rely on the pollinating and seed dispersal services of bats. Some of these plants include bananas, mangoes, avocados and cashews. They also leave guano, one of the best natural fertilizers available to man. Because of centuries of myth and superstition, bats are among the world's least appreciated and most endangered animals. There were 100,000 fruit bats in the Subic Forest in the 1930s. But due to hunting and human activities within the area, this number went down to only a few thousands today. Yet, Subic fruit bats are considered luckier than the other bats in the country. Fruit bats are hunted by man for food. They are considered a delicacy in many regions in the country. Commercial fruit farmers drive bats away because they consider them as troublesome pests. This led to the extinction of some species of Philippine bats like the bare-backed fruit bat or Dobsonia chapmani, which reportedly disappeared from the forests of Negros and Cebu in 1964 and the Panay fruit bat or Acerodon Lucifer which was last seen in 1892. The Philippine tube-nosed bat, Nyctimene rabori of Negros is considered highly endangered. Scientists warned that this breed will disappear before 2015 unless action is taken to protect its remaining population.
Sometimes we noticed that the moon was really big. I mean like we were right next to it and it covered 50% of the night sky. So, you can imagine how we felt. We talked about it while we walked. You couldnt help but be in awe from the spectacular view of the moon.
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