Recent roosting of little red flying-foxes (Pteropus scapulatus, Pteropodidae) at two sites in the South Coast region of New South Wales, Australia

Matthew Mo; Kylie Coutts-McClelland; Trista Kyriacou; Janine Davies; Gerardine Hawkins; Samara Wehmeyer; Lorraine Oliver; Samantha H. Yabsley; Jessica Meade; Justin A. Welbergen

doi:10.1071/AM24047

RESEARCH ARTICLE (Open Access)

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Recent roosting of little red flying-foxes (Pteropus scapulatus, Pteropodidae) at two sites in the South Coast region of New South Wales, Australia

Matthew Mo

^A ^* , Kylie Coutts-McClelland ^B , Trista Kyriacou ^C , Janine Davies ^D , Gerardine Hawkins ^C , Samara Wehmeyer ^C , Lorraine Oliver ^B , Samantha H. Yabsley ^E , Jessica Meade ^E and Justin A. Welbergen

^E

+ Author Affiliations

- Author Affiliations

^A NSW Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water, Threatened Species and Ecosystems Branch, 4 Parramatta Square, 12 Darcy Street, Parramatta, NSW 2150, Australia.

^B NSW Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water, South East Branch, 84 Crown Street, Wollongong, NSW 2500, Australia.

^C Wildlife Rescue South Coast, PO Box 666, Nowra, NSW 2541, Australia.

^D Sydney Metropolitan Wildlife Services, PO Box 78, Lindfield, NSW 2070, Australia.

^E Hawkesbury Institute for the Environment, Western Sydney University, Hawkesbury Campus, Richmond, NSW 2753, Australia.

^* Correspondence to: matthew.mo@environment.nsw.gov.au

Handling Editor: Ross Goldingay

Australian Mammalogy 47, AM24047 https://doi.org/10.1071/AM24047

Submitted: 25 November 2024 Accepted: 16 June 2025 Published: 4 July 2025

© 2025 The Author(s) (or their employer(s)). Published by CSIRO Publishing on behalf of the Australian Mammal Society. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-ND)

Abstract

We report observations of temporary colonies of little red flying-foxes (Pteropus scapulatus) occurring at two roost sites on the South Coast of New South Wales, a region in which roosting by this species is rarely observed. The colonies persisted at these locations for at least 25 days during February and March 2024 and consisted of fluctuating numbers of little red flying-foxes, up to 27,000 individuals during an inspection at one site. Concurrent inspections of 40 of the 61 other known flying-fox roosts in the South Coast and adjacent Illawarra regions confirmed that little red flying-foxes were not present at those sites. However, the species was concurrently present in three grey-headed flying-fox (Pteropus poliocephalus) roosts in Sydney, ~110–125 km away, and in one roost in the lower Hunter region, ~215 km away. We also report on two earlier instances of little red flying-foxes at roost sites in the South Coast region.

Keywords: Chiroptera, flying-fox colonies, management implications, megabat, monitoring, New South Wales, nomadism, Old World fruit bats, Pteropodidae, Shoalhaven district, species distribution, Yinpterochiroptera.

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