BULLETIN FLORIDA STATE MUSEUM


A. jamaicensis are frequently several hundred meters from the trees
where fruits are picked. Only when feeding on fruits of Dipteryx
panamensis did A. jamaicensis feed in fruiting trees, apparently
because Dipteryx fruits are too large for this species to carry effi-
ciently (pers. obs.). Vampyrodes caraccioloi, A. jamaicensis, A.
lituratus, and A. phaeotis were observed carrying whole or partially
eaten fruits in flight. These animals were transporting food items to a
night roost for consumption. It was not determined whether the less
common guild members use night roosts as eating sites.
 Fruits carried in flight by fruit bats vary in weight from less than 1
g to about 20 g. Most bats carry fruits that weigh 20 to 40 percent of
their own body weight. Table 7 lists the range in weight of some fruits
eaten by stenodermine bats. There is considerable variation in the
weights among and within species for these fruits (even in fruits from
an individual tree).
 There is a highly significant correlation (P < .01) of fruit weight
with bat weight for fruits carried into nets by the three largest species
of bats in the canopy frugivore guild (Fig. 5). Most of the points in this
figure represent Ficus insipida fruits, the most important food species
in the diet of all three bat species. Thus, even though these three bats
have high overlap in food species (Table 5), individuals specialize on
food particles proportional to their body weights. Smaller canopy
frugivore species probably do the same with F. yoponensis which is
quite variable in fruit weight.
 Each fig specialist has a distinct temporal cycle of flight activity.
The three largest species, V. caraccioloi, A. jamaicensis, and A.
lituratus, have activity peaks at different times of the night (Fig. 6).
Since these three species frequently feed in the same individual trees in
the course of the night, offsetting activity patterns probably function

TABLE 7.-WET WEIGHTS IN GRAMS OF SOME BAT FRUITS COLLECTED BENEATH
 FRUITING TREES ON BCI.
 Fruit weights
Plant species Range Mean S.D. N
Ficus insipida 7.1-11.4 9.1 1.5 10
Ficus obtusifolia 14.2-19.0 17.1 2.5 3
Ficus yoponensis 1.5- 5.6 3.1 1.1 12
Anacardium excelsum 4.2- 6.2 5.1 0.7 7
Calophyllum longifolium 9.3-17.7 14.7 3.3 7
Dipteryx panamensis 18.0-26.3 22.3 3.6 5
Spondias radlkoferi 8.6-13.0 10.6 1.4 9
Quararibea asterolepis 4.9- 6.3 5.4 0.6 4
Astrocaryum standleyanum 17.0-20.5 18.8 1.8 4
Piper cordulatum 0.5- 2.0 1.2 0.5 15


Vol. 24, No. 4