Regarding Pteropus

Posted on by scott

Pteropus, also known as the flying fox, is one of my favorite inhabitants of Sydney. The “foxes” are really fruit bats, with meter-wide wingspans and a taste for figs and mosquitos. They don’t echo-locate like smaller bats, but they do have a distinctive chirp, like a tongue click in some alien language. Pteropus also has a pleasant musky smell, like a faraway skunk in those moments before you realize what you’re smelling.

For the next couple of weeks, we’re staying within view of the Royal Botanical Gardens, which swarms every evening with foxes heading out to the suburbs. Dusk is prime mosquito hunting time, of course.

Here’s the view from our balcony, with the Opera House peeking out from the trees. In the top right, the first bat of the evening has just taken wing.

After many tries, I managed to catch one whizzing just overhead . . .

In close-up, you can see the mammalian skeletal structure—the tiny feet and the vestigial fingers sticking out from the wings.

And remember, this thing’s big. Three feet across! Walking at night, we occasionally startle one out of a low tree, and it’s like a leather kite coming to life just over your head.

Anyway, that’s what I’m staring out at these days. Book 1 of Leviathan is in copy-editing, and the research for Book 2 is in full swing . . .

98 thoughts on “Regarding Pteropus”

  3. Na na na na na na na na na na na na na na na

    BatmAAAAAAn!

    Oh, whoops, it’s just another Australian slither. Silly me.

    Thanks for the shots, Scott! Can’t wait to read Leviathan. 😀

  4. Neato bat pics. It reminds me of this huge eagle looking bird I saw today. I saw it while I was in the car, it was kind of shocking. I always look out the car window but I never see anything interesting.

    What is Leviathan about? Have you posted the synopsis?

    Read my blog. I just put up some funny pics of action figures from Rudolf The Red-Nosed Reindeer. 😀
    Once again, read my blog. Leave a comment, blog lurkers aren’t as much fun.

  8. Wow, that’s a beautiful creature! (And for once I’m in top 10!!)

    And yay! Leviathan! Can’t wait to get my hands on it.

  10. Hey Scott,

    Have you walked under the trees where they roost in the Botanical Gardens? You might not find the musky smell quite so pleasant there! But I agree–they are cool little dudes. I remember the first time an Irish friend saw them (at Featherdale Wildlife Park where I took her for a one-stop shop of Aussie fauna), she couldn’t believe her eyes–bats, in Ireland, being mouse-sized. I always half expect them to turn up in one of her books. (She’s an author/illustrator and took a stack of photos.)

  12. those bats sound really big!!! i actually got 2 c a big bat in Disney World!! it probably wasn’t 3 ft., but it was big& a fruit eater…….it was kinda scary!!!=D

  13. my nana(scottish grandma) has a friend who lives in Sydney(idk if my spelling is right), last year she went 2 visit her!! she said it was beautiful!!! nana says that grandma is 4 old people, thats why we call her nana!!=D

  15. wow that bat sounds big. if i saw a bat that large flying in my neighborhood, i’d probably be freaked out.
    oh and yay leviathan!

    ~Aryll-wa

  18. That’s pretty sweet. Your description reminds me of those little mynok things in Star Wars.

    *shudders*

    I don’t like bats. Haven’t since we had to evict them from our attic.

  21. A view of the Opera house, Flying Foxes, and no sub-zero temperatures. Maybe it’s time I start thinking about moving to Sydney…

  22. That’s fawesome, I don’t really see bats where I live. Lots of birds and squirrels and deer but, alas, no bats.

    I can’t wait for Leviathan to come out! I know it’s great, coming from you, (no pressure), lol just kidding.

    I like bats, especially huge one, too bad I don’t have them here in VA.

  26. Ha, it was pretty amazing seeing those bats when we went in Australia! We saw them most in the North though. Anyway, I think we ran into one with the car. :S It was really dark and on a really adventurous outback-ish road and there was a huge *bang* and we all screamed like maniacs! Anyway. I kind of liked them. 🙂

    Oh, and also, I read the chapter from Leviathan in Bogus to Bubbly, and I can’t tell you how much I look forward to it. I have a strange obsession with WWI and II fiction, and this adds the genius of science fiction!

  27. Yeah, actually Leviathan didn’t sound that appealing to me, until I read that darn excerpt in Bogus to Bubbly. You authors and your sneaky ways! Now I really can’t wait for it to come out. 😉

  29. there r lots of fruit bats in Michigan in the summer!! they eat the mosquitos!! some poeple i know actually have a bat box on a tree in their backyard.=D
    Happy Monday!!!!(i only say that cause there is no school on this monday, which makes it happy) i actually have a life 2day 2! i m going 2 a christmas party(we r not going 2 the dance thankfully) there r only like 5 of us, so we r going 2 the mall or the movies!!=D

  30. Gabrielle: how could u hit 1 w/ your car!!(even though if i ever went there the same thing would probably happen 2 me)=D

  31. Wow, that’s insane! I would be so scared one was going to attack me!

    Hoba-wa: I was thinking the same thing…SLITHERS!!!!

    I’m so excited for Leviathan!! It’s almost unbearable!

    Australia sounds so cool. Even with scary three-foot bats. (flying fox is the scary part)
    Kailyx, I agree with you, no cold would be nice! And pretty views!

    Ashley-wa: Happy Monday!! !! !!!!!!!!!!!!(!!)

  32. (read the last post’s comments)
    Ashley-wa: A heated jacket would be DA BOMB DIGGIDY!!! And awesome Team David shirt (traitor). I hope you enjoy Extras!

    Elmo is creeeepaaayyy.

    (back to this post)
    It would be kind of cool to see a bat..if there was a window and maybe some metal bars in between yourself and it…Sydney looks so cool. I’m sick of snow, it’s up to my knees!! (Take me with youuuu Scott-la!!!)

    Everyone have a nice day/evening!

  37. it’s a bat, a bat! hahah bats scare me….

    wow that looks cool where you are 🙂 and yay for porgress on Liviathan ( i think i spelled it wrong) i can’t wait to read it too bad it dosn’t come out for a long, long time 🙁

  40. Awesome new blog Kenzie-La!! I would have been hiding under something if bats were attacking my boat!

    Woo! I was building a snow fort! It’s coooold! Have a nice day, again!

  43. “Oh well thats all, Im gonna have a goldfish bloodbath(which is really just tomato soup and goldfish crackers but sounds cooler this way.)”

    I personally don’t like tomato soup, But Kenzie-La, You just made it cool. Lol! That’s totally insane. (goldfish blood-bath muahahahahhahahaha) evilll………..
    Went to thinkgeek.com checking it out..

    HI Ashley-wa!

  45. Jay-wa: HI! 2 u 2!!! that gold fish thing does sound pretty evil(ew blood) now i m never eating tomato soup(never had it never will) i was looking up cool sayings& found a bunch, but i can’t quite figure out how 2 get them from Word 2 any thing else!! soooo dizzy-making!!!=D how is everybody??

  47. du na na na na na na na na na na na na
    batman!

    if im not mistaken, i think those were the bats in indiana jones and the temple of doom. (indy said they were vampire bats, but he said that because the scientific name for these bats is Pteropus vampyrus)

  48. who would wanna eat misquitoes?
    EWW!
    bats r cool
    i used to hate them because of a very scaring pic*shutters*
    but i think there cool now

  50. and look at those pretty clouds
    i just wanna
    -eat them
    -go to sleep on them
    -run thru them
    too bad all i can do is look at them=.[

  51. oh my gosh, i haven’t comented here for forever and a day…trust me, i’ve been lost in the waves of thought and the forest of choices….whatever, okay, gotta go make pizza.

  53. Hehe, my brother in law is deathly afraid of bats. He wouldn’t even go and look at them at the zoo. And those were pansy American bats. Rofl.

  54. Watch out, those pansy American bats will gum you to death!! (as in they’re trying to bit you, but it tickles, and feels like they’re gnawing on you with their little bat gums) !!!

  55. My mom just got me Magic or Madness today (as a present for Hannukah) and I checked your blog and, lo and behold, flying foxes (from MoM…wait…? MOM? *eyetwitch*).

    *goes chibi-pompoms on you* LEVIATHAN! LE-VI-A-TH-ANNNN!

  56. BTW. Moving to Sydney with ya Scott. Closer to Japan than smelly poxy recession-y US. And it’s summer-r-r-r! It’s so cold her, but it’s the East Coast so it never-rarely snows. D=

    And last year when it did, it started raining and became slush. Okay, I officially hate this city. And this state.

  57. Ping-la: Hannukah sounds awesome!! Or jewish people do. Everyone blames them for everything, like gremlins or Special Circumstances, But they’re totally cool. Happy Hannukah!! And woo! Magic or Madness!!

  62. I’m googleing (googling?) the names of the mansions in Pretties, assuming they’re all named after ‘classic-pretties’. Pretty insane.

  64. Jay-wa: how do u know what it feels like when an american bat tries 2 bite u?? i haven’t been on since yeaterdey@ 4:00pm!! seperation problems were starting!!!!=D

  70. YOU DON’T KNOW WHAT A SLITHER IS?!?!?!?! (I have no idea what it feels like to b e bitten by a bat. I was just guessing…yeah…:wink:) A slither is a creature in the Blue Time. (Midnighters Series.)

  72. yeah, i haven’t read it or seen it @ any book store i go2!!! they have it @ this 1 library, so maybe i’ll read it!! i don’t think american bats have teeth, so gums would b a pretty good guess!!;D yesterday i saw Twilight(again), but this time it was a total SNOOZE FEST!!!! i almost fell asleep, but i knew if i did my Twilight obcessed friend would hit me w/ her purse……so i thought it would b better 2 daydream!!! i was completely zoned out the whole time except in the beginning when i was trying 2 pick up Robert Pattinson’s brittish accent(he’s really good@ hiding it) but that got boring after a while…….i completely felt those 2 hours of my life being wasted on boredom(i would much rather have been reading) okay, i won’t bore u w/ the rest of the story!!!=D

  73. I thought Twilight the first time was wayy better than the second time. (Even though the first time I was staring at Robert Pattinson…)

    Midnighters is utterly amazing.

  74. did u pick up his accent, cause after the 1st time i saw it i watched this interview & he had a brittish accent!!! i was like OMG i didn’t know he had an accent!! =D

  75. Yeah, it’s the same thing if you’ve ever seen the tv show House. Hugh Laurie, who plays Dr. House has a major Brit accent, but during the show you can’t tell AT ALL. Am I the only one that totally couldn’t tell he was sparkling in the sun at all the first time? Cuz I could see it the second time he did in the movie. I was like, AND STEPHENIE MY SAID LET THERE BE LIGHT AND THERE WAS EDWARD!

  77. The only British Edward I care about is Ed Westwick from Gossip Girl. He hides his accent during the TV show, but it just makes his voice ten zillion times sexier.

    An extra for now. 😉

  78. OMG!!! I like can’t wait till Christmas! The tree is sooo full of presents right now and I am sooooo excited to dig in on christmas morning!!! Oh, I hope I hot an i-pod nano…..

  79. Oh, I know right? I was kind of excited for presents until I actually scouted out the tree and found lots for me. This one from my grandma has the weirdest shape, and now I really want to know what it is!

    An extra for now. 😉

  80. Audrey-sensi: is Ed Westwick the guy who plays Chuck or Nate? i think its Chuck cause i have heard his accent & i was like wow, i had no idea he had an accent(he2 is good@ hiding it)=D

  81. HaHaHa, I tried to watch Gossip Girl a while back but I had to shut it off cuz I felt my brain starting to melt…lol. But I have to admit, he is hot.

  82. Tally&Zane: I totally agree with you about Gossip Girl. My sisters watch it and it is SO LAME!!!

    (I don’t know if I should keep the ‘wa’ in my name on this blog or not.)

    Click my name. I just added some new stuff to my blog. Leave a comment and tell me what you think of the picture behind the blog title at the top. 😀

  83. It wouldn’t let me post a comment, but that santa thing’s hilarious and I like the pic. It’s cool.

  84. Whenever my sisters watch Gossip Girl I end up feeling brain-missing and I hate feeling like that.

    Click my name. 🙂
    Can someone tell me if the video on my blog is too much? That would be really nice. 😀

  86. wow those things are hudge
    Im use to seeing the tiny ones
    in the okanogan(which I think are incredibly cute)
    and I can’t wait for Leviathan, I NEED smoething to read.
    and it seems good from the parts I read in Bogus to bubbly

  88. i can’t wait for Leviathan! i read the first two chapters in Bogus to Bubbly and is seams really good so far. when does it come out exactly?

  91. i have a q about the uglies series do you think you could make them into a movie ??

    me and my friends were talking about how cool it would be !!

    write back and tell me

    -Bailey

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