Giant Golden-Crowned Flying-Fox

hello everyone welcome back to relax with animal facts I am Steph wolf and today I am going to be learning with you about our furry scaly or possibly even slimy friends and in today's case it is definitely going to be a furry friend of ours because we are covering the %HESITATION soul wonderful giant golden crowned flying fox this podcast episode is of course very very special not only because it is possibly the longest name of an animal that we've had on the show thus far but also because it is dedicated to Dalin who wrote in via Instagram thank you Dylan for a wonderful suggestion this episode would not have been possible without you writing in and this podcast would not be possible without each and everyone of you out there listening and writing in all the time with such wonderful messages and little reviews of the show if you want to suggest an animal you can do so in a couple of different ways well it is more like three different ways the first way you can write into the show is by sending a message to at relax with animal facts on Instagram or you can also send an email the good old fashioned way to relax with animal facts at two G. mail dot com the third way which has yet to be used is sending in your suggestion via carrier pigeon someone just recently sent a message all the way from Italy to say Hey I'm gonna send a carrier pigeon to which I made sure to reply that along with the message you better pack food because that is a long flight but I look forward to hearing from each and everyone of you if you have not reached out before and you would like to reach out please I have never too busy to get messages from you guys and to reply this podcast is all about you guys there is never a message that I received two which I rolled my eyes and think oh I am too busy for this person or anything of the sort and this leads me to a special announcement particularly to do with more of the podcast I have had many of you saying we want to some more of the podcast for each new episode that comes out from now on which includes this episode of course they will be continuations or an even deeper dive over the animal each episode available on the pay tree on page I wanted to make each of these continuation episodes available to as many of you as possible I know how difficult these times are and how much you guys love the show and so while there are different tiers on that patriarchy page the lowest one being one dollar a month every tear will have the exact same access to exclusive episode continuations so it is all a matter of how much you wish to support the show with I would like to stress the fact to that each episode will be exactly as it has been on the regular podcast for the past ninety something odd episodes in terms of the links and the content but the show on patrie on is going to go past the normal length of time that we usually do along with some extra facts and things like that so if you love the show and want more of it that's where you can go to get more and supports of the show in the process and that patron on page is a tree on dot com slash relax with animal facts you can also go to the show notes in the description to find out more about that so let me move on to the review portion of the show where I read a review from one of you awesome listeners out there and if this review is coming all the way from the United States of America and it is written by either archer Cade or or two three arcade I don't know which one is which whether that three is an easy or not so sorry art if I butchered your name but arch rights after a while I finally decided to try this podcast and fell in love on the first episode it helps me fall asleep every night and I pick it over my favorite podcasts all the time Steph wolf you are so relaxing and I like chamomile tea to suggestion please do the animal potoroo for an episode they are awesome thanks thank you art for such a wonderful review I am very grateful that you enjoy the show so much that you pick it over your favorite podcasts and the fact that you like chamomile tea as well brings me a lot of joy and the reason I say that is the majority of people that I know in real life do not like chamomile tea at all and are never shy to share with me that the equivalent of drinking chamomile tea is like biting the bottom of the shoe and so whenever someone else says they like chamomile tea I have to give them a high five and your suggestion for the hotel room is a great one and I'll be sure to give you a big shout out on your very own episode if you want to leave a review like art did you absolutely can just know that your listenership already means the world and leaving a review is something that is superfluous or extra that you can do if you really want to help the show grow and let me just say where I caught my facts from for today before we get into the show I got my facts from facts dot net back to worlds dot com and kid D. D. L. dot com all of these resources will be in the description of the episode so you can go and visit those resources if you want to learn more about these guys and I'm sure many other animals and now I want all of you to notice perhaps where are you were carrying some tension is it in the head is it in the shoulders in the legs in the arms for everyone it is going to be different for me it seems to be mostly in my hands and in my shoulders and so I would like all of you to do your best right along with me as we relax so those parts of our body and allow us to be like little pieces of Jello as we go into this immersive experience with me staff wolf into the rainforests with the giant golden crowned flying fox resides I bet that the majority of you don't hear that everyday the first fact of the episode is going to be attributed to what they are the giant golden crowned flying fox is not actually a fox but it is a bat their name suggests that they are big and they indeed are big in comparison to other bats but the article here says that they are not human sized contrary to popular belief instead they have short streamline the bodies that reach up to seven to eleven and a half inches which is about seventeen point eight to twenty nine centimeters long but that being said they do tend to reach human sized proportions in terms of their wing span the golden crowned flying fox has the large wingspan back in reach five and a half feet that's about one point seven meters and this gigantic wingspan led experts to believe that the giant of golden crowned flying fox is the largest bat in the world and as with all bats they have those wings that are quite membranous meaning they lack a lot of for so when we said at the top of the show our furry friends they are furry just knocked on their wings now this is a sort of animal that while it may be cute in the face it can be quite distressing if I was to see this back that hanging upside down from somewhere when I was walking outside at night I would likely continue running all the way from Canada past my home into the United States and probably down somewhere into South America that being said when it comes to weight these bats are not the heaviest bats in the world the great flying fox in the Indian flying fox both outweigh the giant golden crowned flying fox giant golden crowned flying foxes way up to two point six pounds which is about one point two kilograms while the great flying foxes and Indian flying foxes way up to three point two pounds it's close to one and a half kilos and about three point five pounds which is about one point six kilograms respectively and so there is a decent size difference between the golden crowned flying fox which is the animal that we're covering today and those other ones which are the great flying fox and the Indian flying foxes while they are big in terms of bats they are not the heaviest and let me just say their scientific name before I get any angry emails as to why I didn't embarrass myself on the show their scientific name is the Asaro don Jupitus it seems as though researchers or whoever names these animals is going a bit easy on me these past few weeks these bats are dimorphic which means that the mails are slightly larger than the females in terms of cranial and external measurements dimorphic means that there will be significant difference between males and females of the same species this is quite a common thing in the animal kingdom and we have come across this many a time on the show so far with the ninety something odd episodes that we have done and in terms of them being cute T. U. or ugly to you that is all for you to decide as I said before they might be cute possibly up close in a controlled environment but if you were to be walking in the Philippines and see this bat it would probably scare you if you were not AS in wala gist and that leads us into the habitat of the giant golden crowned flying fox the only home of this particular batch is in the Philippines and the specific locations include the Maton and Mindanao I hope I am saying that okay and they will live in deep caves as well as in the rainforests they typically follow the roots of the river and experts believe it is because they can easily find food sources along those areas if you want to see them in the wild you will have to book a flight to the Philippines unless of course you are already from the Philippines they have some habits that some would find relatable as well in a scientific study of these giant bats is daytime habits researcher %HESITATION is found that the golden crowned flying fox spends more than seventy six percent of its two day sleeping and they will often sleep on cliff edges steep slopes or hardwood trees and this will mean that they have the feeding pattern and a life pattern that is mostly or almost exclusively nocturnal sometimes when trying to remember what does nocturnal mean what does diurnal mean it can help to look at some of those routes words for example nocturnal it comes from a Latin word Knox or knocked which means night and over just a few steps became nocturnal the females are going to spend more time resting then the males and the mails will spend more time engaging in behaviors that would increase their opportunities to mate and so not only can they be of different sizes and things like that they also will have some difference in their day to day or if we can say night tonight behaviors now because this animal is relatively rare there is currently little knowledge regarding their reproductive behaviors they often reproduce around at the same time in their regions suggesting that they breed seasonally and use photo periods to signal when it is time to breed typically these bats often give birth from April to may with some colonies giving birth between may and June here we have an example of an animal that might have some pretty interesting habits or patterns better knowledge known to researchers just yet because of the population size as well as where they can be found animals that are generally found in only a few select locations are going to take some serious dedication as it might be quite challenging to be in close contact with them for a long period of time for us as human beings the way that we keep cool we might try to find a breeze somewhere or if we're wearing a sweater we might take the sweater off some of us that have little dogs we might see that they can't and they have their tongue out to cool themselves but in the case of this particular batch they will fan their babies using their wings to keep them cool at birth the helpless pups will cling to the four of their mothers using their claws and the mothers are solely responsible for the nourishment and the care of these pups even fanning them with one wing to keep them cool from this fact we not only learned a pretty cool maternal pattern to the giant golden crowned flying fox but also we learned that the baby bats of this particular species are known as pops that you did not seem to me to be quite intuitive but that is what they're called like most bats they will play an important role in the ecosystem not only are most bats going to play an important role in the ecosystem but virtually any animal that we think of will play some kind of a role in the ecosystem some animals may be able to affect their ecosystem more than others we know for example beavers can single handedly change and ecosystem through their little architectural adventures they can change water patterns and where water goes and different things like that but while the bat can't do that necessarily they do still play an important role in ecology two things that they do best in their ecosystem is keeping populations of pests under control as well as pollinating flowering plants as such scientists referred to bats in general as keystone species meaning that they are incredibly important without them the local ecosystem would likely suffer a severe negative impact this is something that we see time and time again where we have these local ecosystems that strike such an incredible balance in terms of all of the little critters that are inside in the plants and everything is on this delicate sort of scale that it if it is tipped one way in the significantly harsh way it could have big impacts to the rest of the ecosystem the golden crowned flying fox is no exception to that rule that is because they disperse the seeds of the fruits they eat and as the travel those long distances they will spread the seeds through their droppings S. and their existence consequently ensures that the forests they inhabit have a healthy population of fig trees and other plant species so just why it's going through its day to day routine it really helps to become a kind of secondary architect of the forest as they are planting fig trees possibly without thinking about it and now for the last fact of the episode which is the name giant golden crowned flying fox where does this name come from and why are they called this as we covered before they are not foxes so why are they called the flying fox the term flying fox generally will refer to these large bats of the family terror pode today I am glad that the scientific names that are challenging sort of snuck up on me close to the end of the episode and these bats adopted the name because their heads resemble those of foxes they have that kind of fuzziness and coloration of foxes so I can definitely see where that name came from if you haven't seen this animal before when you have a spare second I greatly encourage you to Google image search them and see what does this beautiful animal look like so thank you again Dalin for your wonderful animal suggestion this podcast episode would not have been possible without it if you want to learn about a particular animal I do hope that you reach out to the Instagram relax with animal facts or that you reach out to the email relax with animal facts at G. mail dot com and let me know what animal you would like covered on the show this was an amazing episode and I learned a lot and I hope that you did too and I hope that you will join me on our next animal adventure on the next podcast episode take care.