Animals - Nocturnal Building

African Straw-colored Fruit Bat
Eidolon helvum
Range:	Sub-saharan Africa, the Arabian Peninsula and Madagascar
Habitat:	Tropical forests, coastal forests, arid regions
Diet:	Fruit juices, fruit, soft wood. At the zoo they eat fruit, vegetables and fruit juices.
Fun Facts:	These tree-dwelling bats typically ingest the juice of fruit, but discard the fibrous material. They also chew up wood and bark to obtain moisture. They are active during the day but will only feed at night. Bats play an important role in pollination as they frequently visit flowers and fruit and disperse ingested seeds while they fly. Straw-colored fruit bats occur in enormous colonies of 100,000 to 1,000,000 individuals of both sexes.