Pteropus melanotus Blyth 1863

5. Pteropus melanotus Blyth, 1863 Black-eared Flying Fox New record South Andaman Islands: East Twin Island. Previous records South Andaman Islands: No exact location (ZSIK); Rutland Island, South Sentinel Island, and Port Blair (Mason, 1908; Hill, 1971). Comments The Andaman Island specimens belong to the subspecies P. m. tytleri. Only four specimens were captured and collected. Historically, this species was reported from Rutland Island, South Sentinel Island, and Port Blair (Mason, 1908; Hill, 1971). Aul et al. (2014) reported the sightings of this species from Paget Island, Kwagtung Island, and Landfall Island in North Andaman Islands; Interview Island in Middle Andaman Islands, and Boat Island and Rutland Island in South Andaman Islands. Two specimens labeled P. melanotus from Barren Island ��� collected by Ms. Bandana Aul in the collection of Harrison Institute (HZM 1.34461 and 2.37630) ��� are misidentified P. hypomelanus owing to their smaller forearm length (FA P. m. tytleri was located on the East Twin Island, and these bats were seen feeding on East Twin Island and Rutland Island in the South Andaman Islands.
Published as part of Srinivasulu, Chelmala, Srinivasulu, Aditya, Srinivasulu, Bhargavi, Gopi, Asad, Dar, Tauseef Hamid, Bates, Paul J. J., Rossiter, Stephen J. & Jones, Gareth, 2017, Recent surveys of bats from the Andaman Islands, India: diversity, distribution, and echolocation characteristics, pp. 419-437 in Acta Chiropterologica 19 (2) on page 427, DOI: 10.3161/15081109ACC2017.19.2.018, http://zenodo.org/record/3942489
{"references":["BLYTH, E. 1863. The Zoology of Andaman Islands. Appendix to Mouat Fredrick, J. ' s \" Adventures and researches among the Andaman Islanders \". Hurst and Blackett, London: 345 - 367.","MASON, G. E. 1908. On the fruit bats of the genus Pteropus inhabiting the Andaman and Nicobar Archipelagos, with the description of a new species. Records of the Indian Museum, 2: 159 - 166.","HILL, J. E. 1971. A note on Pteropus (Chiroptera: Pteropodidae) from the Andaman Islands. Journal of the Bombay Natural History Society, 68: 1 - 8.","AUL, B., P. J. J. BATES, D. L. HARRISON, and G. MARIMUTHU. 2014. Diversity, distribution and status of bats on the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, India. Oryx, 48: 204 - 212."]}