The first confirmed grey-headed flying-fox (Pteropus poliocephalus) roost in western New South Wales, Australia

Matthew Mo; Troy Witte; Trevor Bauer; Ray Dayman; Leila Brook; Jason Van Weenen; Sandra Guy

doi:10.1071/AM25014

RESEARCH ARTICLE (Open Access)

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The first confirmed grey-headed flying-fox (Pteropus poliocephalus) roost in western New South Wales, Australia

Matthew Mo

^A ^* , Troy Witte ^B , Trevor Bauer ^C , Ray Dayman ^C , Leila Brook ^D , Jason Van Weenen ^E and Sandra Guy ^F

+ Author Affiliations

- Author Affiliations

^A New South Wales Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water, 4 Parramatta Square, 12 Darcy Street, Parramatta, NSW, Australia.

^B New South Wales Department of Primary Industries, Dareton Primary Industries Institute, 1998 Silver City Highway, Dareton, NSW, Australia.

^C New South Wales National Parks and Wildlife Service, Lower Darling Area, 4 Melaleuca Street, Buronga, NSW, Australia.

^D Victorian Department of Energy, Environment and Climate Action, 189-229 Lyttleton Terrace, Bendigo, Vic, Australia.

^E Green Adelaide, South Australian Department of Environment and Water, 81-95 Waymouth Street, Adelaide, SA, Australia.

^F Sydney Wildlife Rescue, PO Box 78, Lindfield, NSW, Australia.

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

Handling Editor: Ross Goldingay

Australian Mammalogy 47, AM25014 https://doi.org/10.1071/AM25014

Submitted: 16 April 2025 Accepted: 25 June 2025 Published: 10 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

The grey-headed flying-fox (Pteropus poliocephalus) typically occurs within 300 km of the eastern and south-eastern Australian coastline from the mid-coast of Queensland to Adelaide, South Australia. We report the unprecedented occurrence of a grey-headed flying-fox colony in Curlwaa, a semi-arid town in New South Wales (NSW) more than 300 km from the nearest other known roost used by the species. Notably, the colony has been continually occupied since first forming in mid-July 2024, a period of 11 months to date. This roost represents the first confirmed grey-headed flying-fox roost anywhere in the western half of NSW and one of only three colonies of this species known to have persisted in a semi-arid region over a timeframe of months.

Keywords: Chiroptera, Far West region, flying-fox colony, Murray–Darling Basin, Old World fruit bats, Pteropodidae, range expansion, roosting ecology, Yinpterochiroptera.

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