Cynopterus sphinx Bat Skull Greater Short-Nosed Fruit Mammalia Chiroptera Pteropodidae

Bat Skeleton Greater Short-Nosed Fruit Cynopterus sphinx cm 12-15 Mammalia Chiroptera Pteropodidae, in hanging position with closed wings, as in photos.
Family: Pteropodidae.
Common name: Greater Short-Nosed Fruit Bat.

The Greater Short-Nosed Fruit Bat or Short-Nosed Indian Fruit Bat  is a bat belonging to the Pteropodidae family.
Cynopterus sphinx is a small bat with the length of the head and body between 76 and 113 mm, a wingspan of up to 43.6 cm and a weight of up to 67 g.
It lives in different types of habitats, from primary and secondary forests to urban settlements and rural areas up to 400 meters above sea level. It takes refuge in small colonies of up to 30 individuals among the fronds of palm trees, on trees, under the roofs of houses and in shallow, illuminated caves. It has also been observed inside hollow trees.
It becomes active 30 minutes after sunset and continues throughout the night. The flight is slow and maneuvered. Performs migrations up to 90 km. It feeds on flowers and fruits of various types of palm trees and bananas. They give birth to one young at a time several times a year. This species is widespread in the eastern Ecozone from Pakistan through the entire Indian Subcontinent, southern China, Indochina up to the Indonesian island of Java, Borneo and some nearby islands. Six subspecies have been recognized.

Chiroptera (Blumenbach, 1779) is an order of placental mammals commonly known as bats. It is the second largest group of mammals after rodents, comprising about 20% of the described species.
The scientific term Chiroptera derives from the two Greek words χείρ chéir, "mano" and πτερόν pterón, "wing", with a clear allusion to the peculiarity of the upper limb. The two suborders have the micro- and macro- prefixes respectively to highlight the difference in size between the two groups, although the largest micro-beetles are much larger than the smaller Macrochiroptera.
The only mammals able to fly and perform complex maneuvers in the air belong to the order of Chiroptera. The smallest species, the bumblebee bat does not weigh more than 2 grams and is considered, together with the Etruscan mustiol, the smallest mammal in the world, while the largest are some species of the genus Pteropus and Acerodon, which reach a weight of about 1 , 6 kg and a wingspan of up to 1.8 meters.
The wings developed from the substantial modification of the upper limb, where the forearm and, even more, the metacarpal bones and the phalanges of the hand suffered a disproportionate elongation. The fingers are joined together by a vascularized skin membrane, called patagio, which extends to the sides of the body and lower limbs. In most species there is an additional membrane between the legs, which can sometimes incorporate the tail. The wing proportions vary considerably between the different species and can be long and narrow in bats that need great autonomy, or short and wide in those that are used to perform rapid maneuvers and with sudden changes of direction, especially in dense vegetation or in presence of obstacles very close together.
Speeds varying between 16 km / h and 165 km / h have been recorded (the highest ever recorded in horizontal flight among all flying animals).
The body is generally covered with a thick fur. The head can take on a remarkable variety of forms, mainly associated with eating habits and methods of obtaining food. It can be short and wide or narrow and elongated. The ears are large, sometimes exceptionally huge, and have the function in the Microchiroptera to collect the reflected sound waves emitted by the animals themselves for echolocation. The eyes vary greatly in size, being almost atrophied in the Microchiroptera, while they are large in the Pteropodids, also skilled in color vision. In most species there is a fleshy nose on the nose, called the nasal leaf, which has the function of regulating and directing the beam of sound waves emitted by the animal through the nose or mouth.