Grey-headed Flying Fox

Quick Facts

Name: Grey-headed Flying Fox

Diet: Fruit, especially figs, as well as nectar and pollen

Behaviour: Nocturnal and social

Lifespan: 15 years in the wild and 23 in captivity 

Size: The largest bat native to Australia. Between 0.6-1kg and measuring 23-29cm from head to toe with a wingspan of up to 1 metre.

Habitat/Range:  East/Southeast Australia and inhabit rainforests, open forests, closed and open woodland, Melaleuca swamps and Banksia woodlands.

Threats: Abnormal weather events such as extreme heat as a result of climate change, habitat loss, entanglement in barbed wire fences and fruit tree netting, conflict with humans including culling, light pollution, shooting to protect crops, and forceful dispersal of colonies from near urban areas

Conservation Status: Vulnerable

Names & Nicknames: Grey-headed flying fox, Grey-headed fruit bat.

Size: Move over Batman. The Grey-headed flying fox is one of the largest species of bats, measuring 29cm from tip to toe and with a wingspan of over 1 metre. This giant of the skies, however, weighs six times less than a housecat!

Smell: If you've found yourself downwind of a grey-headed flying fox camp, you would certainly know it! Male flying foxes will mark their camps with a pungent brew from special glands in their necks. The smell is “so bad you can taste it”, according to some locals. If you have a sensitive smell, you'd hope for a bit of rain to momentarily wash away the scent if you were walking past!

Communication: When you live with potentially up to 20,000 other flying foxes, arguments can break out, and things can get loud, especially during the breeding season! ‘Ark’(ham?) calls and harsh chuckles are used between squabbling bats, whereas a female bat may use some softer 'chups’ and chuckles when checking out a potential mate. Saucy. Camps also tend to be noisiest when disturbed by something, be that a predator or some shouty people and machinery. So, if we turn down the noise, so will they!

Favourite HANGout: During the day, Grey-headed flying foxes need their beauty sleep, and they like to catch some winks with a few hundred or thousands of their closest bat friends. Their favourite slumber spot is in a large tree where they can hang upside down by their feet, using their wings as a natural eye mask. They will live in rainforests, woodlands, and swamps, just as long as there are enough tasty places to forage on their midnight snack raids.

Favourite snack: Although they're known as a ‘fruit bat’, their absolute favourite snack is the pollen and nectar from Australia’s iconic eucalyptus trees – a real sweet tooth.

Eating habits: Grey-headed flying foxes are night-time snackers, leaving their camps at dawn to find the juiciest fruit and the tastiest nectar. Nature has equipped them well for the job – their rough tongue helps them peel the skin off fruit and separate fruit from seeds.

Toilet humour: Grey-headed flying foxes have extremely quick metabolisms and have mastered the art of better out than in. After feeding, they can be ready to let loose in as little as 20 minutes – without consideration for anything or anyone below them. You have to watch out for more than just the sun in Australia with flying foxes about!

Love language: Everything is out in the open here, including mating in the middle of their camps during the day. But whilst you might look at a camp as a sprawling random mass of bats, there are actually strictly controlled territories across all the branches, where a male will keep his harem of up to (if he’s lucky and also very fit, ecologically of course) six females. When a male and female take a liking to each other, mating can be a noisy affair, lasting up to an hour with participants often ready for round 2... then 3 and 4 and 5, and so on, all on the same day.

If you see them: Watch out for any rogue droppings and maybe invest in a nose peg. These neighbours can be smelly and noisy, but they hang upside down and are running out of habitat as it is, so cut them a bit of slack!

Red flags: As night crawlers – or hangers – lighting up the darkness can be pretty detrimental to Grey-headed flying foxes. This species is already suffering from habitat loss, getting caught in barbed wires, and extreme droughts – the last thing they need is constant light that can damage their vision and even delay their ability to reproduce.

Epic journeys: Grey-headed flying foxes can travel around 50km to reach their night-time foraging grounds. That's like flying over the length of a marathon just to get to your fridge at night!

Growth: These aerial adventurers are born almost fully furred, minus a small patch that allows them to snuggle up extra close to their mother's warm body. Their mother will keep caring for them and providing milk (they are mammals, don't you forget) for around five months until they are ready to move out into their own semi-detached tree branch.

Facts: Grey-headed flying foxes aren't just threatened themselves, but an array of other endangered animals and plants rely on it for their survival, given the flying fox's role as an important pollinator of local trees. It's thought that by protecting the Grey-headed flying foxes, we can also protect 6 threatened plants, 19 threatened mammals, and 26 threatened plant species.

Who are they in the friendship group: Sleeps all day and then just wanders off all night, always returning with a full belly and smelling a bit fruity.