Its coat ranges from straw-colored to dark gray. It eats fruit and nectar, is active at night, and may form large colonies.
Its coat varies from straw-colored to dark gray. Males may have a brighter orange collar than females.
Researchers used stable hydrogen isotopes in fur from 88 museum specimens of straw-colored fruit bats to estimate where the bats had been before collection. The specimens came from two museum collections. Fur from 76 modern bats sampled in Morogoro and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, was also used to validate the geographic-origin model.
Of the 85 specimens classified for migration, 16 (22%) were estimated to have travelled at least 250 km. Migrating bats had a median estimated minimum distance of 860 km, and four exceeded 2,000 km. Some bats collected at the same place and time showed different estimated origins. The paper also discusses long-distance movements across regions where fruit abundance changes seasonally.
An extinction-risk assessment has not been added yet.
Of 85 museum specimens classified for migration, 16 were estimated to have travelled at least 250 km, and four exceeded 2,000 km. Straw-colored fruit bats disperse fruit seeds, and the study describes long-distance movements across regions with seasonal changes in fruit abundance.