Admiralty flying fox

The Admiralty flying fox (Pteropus admiralitatum) is a fruit bat of the family Pteropodidae, the megabats, found in Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands. It was first described by the British zoologist Oldfield Thomas in 1894 from specimens collected on the Challenger Expedition in 1875, and its type specimen is held at the Natural History Museum in London. Its name refers to the Admiralty Islands, where it was first documented. It resembles the small flying fox but is smaller, with much smaller ears and a chest and abdomen of the same colour. The top of the head is pale gray, the back of the neck reddish brown and the back brown with scattered white hairs; the head and body are about 180 mm long and the forearm about 121 mm. It may be a complex of three species, one in the Admiralty and northern Solomon Islands, one in Western Province, Guadalcanal and Malaita, and one on Mussau and Emirau. It is evaluated as least concern by the IUCN, with deforestation and bushmeat hunting seen as minor pressures.