Pteropus aruensis (Aru Flying Fox)

[Melanie]

Scientific Name: Pteropus aruensis
Species Authority: Peters, 1867
Common Name/s:
English – Aru Flying Fox
Taxonomic Notes: Often listed as a subspecies of melanopogon following Laurie and Hill (1954). Bergmans (2001) argued that aruensis should be considered distinct pending additional review of this complex. According to K. Helgen (pers. comm.) P. aruensis and P. keyensis are conspecific, but we retain P. aruensis here as a separate species pending resolution of this taxonomic confusion.
Assessment Information [top]
Red List Category & Criteria: Critically Endangered D ver 3.1
Year Published: 2008
Assessor/s: Helgen, K.
Reviewer/s: Hutson, A.M., Racey, P.A. (Chiroptera Red List Authority), Chanson, J. & Chiozza, F. (Global Mammal Assessment Team)
Justification:
Listed as Critically Endangered (Possibly Extinct), as it has not been recorded since the nineteenth century despite some surveys within its range, and it is quite a colourful and large bat. It may have been the target of hunting and may now be possibly extinct. There is one unconfirmed record of a bone from this species from 1992.
Geographic Range [top]
Range Description: This species is apparently restricted to the Aru Islands, Indonesia (Simmons 2005).
Countries:
Possibly extinct:
Indonesia
Range Map: Click here to open the map viewer and explore range.
Population [top]
Population: This species has not been collected since the nineteenth century. The complete absence of twentieth-century records for P. a. aruensis is concerning, and expeditions to the Aru Islands sponsored by the Western Australian Museum in the early 1990s did not encounter it. However, a single toothless jaw from a kitchen midden collected by P.A. Woolley at Namara on the island of Kobroor in October/November 1992 probably represents this species (field number NA/36, unregistered lot at CSIRO) (K. Helgen pers. comm.). It is a very large and colourful bat and so hence it is potentially a target of concerted hunting. It could possibly be extinct.
Population Trend: Unknown
Habitat and Ecology [top]
Habitat and Ecology: There is little information available about the ecology of this species.
Systems: Terrestrial
Threats [top]
Major Threat(s): The threats to this species are not known. This species is a potential target for hunting, and this may have resulted in the species decline, but this has not been confirmed.
Conservation Actions [top]
Conservation Actions: There are no conservation measures in place for this species. A proposed protected area (Pulau Kobroor) is within the general area where the species was found. Further studies are needed into the taxonomy, distribution, abundance, ecology, and threats of this species.
It is listed on CITES Appendix II.

www.iucnredlist.org/apps/redlist/details/136504/0

[surroundx]

Was this species not already posted on this forum?

[Melanie]

Apr 20, 2012 10:20:33 GMT surroundx said:

Was this species not already posted on this forum?

I don't know. I haven't found another thread.

[Bhagatí]

Source:
www.biologie.uni-ulm.de/cgi-bin/query_all/details.pl?id=108592&stufe=7&typ=ZOO
or
www.biologie.uni-ulm.de/cgi-bin/query_all/details.pl?id=108592&stufe=7&typ=ZOO&sid=T&lang=e&pr=nix

with photos of this species.
It was originally named in latin as Pteropus melanopogon var. aruensis Peters, 1867

[surroundx]

Mickleburgh, Simon P., Hutson, Anthony M. and Racey, Paul A. (1992). Old World fruit bats. An action plan for their conservation. Gland, Switzerland: IUCN. viii + 252 pp.

[Melanie]

Scientific Name: Pteropus aruensis
Species Authority: Peters, 1867
Common Name(s):
English – Aru Flying Fox
Taxonomic Notes: Often listed as a subspecies of melanopogon following Laurie and Hill (1954). Bergmans (2001) argued that aruensis should be considered distinct pending additional review of this complex. According to K. Helgen (pers. comm.) P. aruensis and P. keyensis are conspecific, but we retain P. aruensis here as a separate species pending resolution of this taxonomic confusion.
Assessment Information [top]
Red List Category & Criteria: Critically Endangered (Possibly Extinct) D ver 3.1
Year Published: 2016
Date Assessed: 2016-01-18
Assessor(s): Tsang, S.M.
Reviewer(s): Mildenstein, T.
Contributor(s): Helgen, K.
Justification:
Listed as Critically Endangered (Possibly Extinct), as it has not been recorded since the nineteenth century despite some surveys within its range, and it is quite a colourful and large bat. It may have been the target of hunting and may now be possibly extinct. There is one unconfirmed record of a bone from this species from 1992.
Date last seen: 1992
Previously published Red List assessments:

2008 – Critically Endangered (CR)

Geographic Range [top]
Range Description: This species is apparently restricted to the Aru Islands, Indonesia (Simmons 2005).
Countries occurrence:
Possibly extinct:
Indonesia
Additional data:
Range Map: Click here to open the map viewer and explore range.
Population [top]
Population: This species has not been collected since the nineteenth century. The complete absence of twentieth-century records for P. aruensis is concerning, and expeditions to the Aru Islands sponsored by the Western Australian Museum in the early 1990s did not encounter it. However, a single toothless jaw from a kitchen midden collected by P.A. Woolley at Namara on the island of Kobroor in October/November 1992 probably represents this species (field number NA/36, unregistered lot at CSIRO) (K. Helgen pers. comm.). It is a very large and colourful bat and so hence it is potentially a target of concerted hunting. It could possibly be extinct.
Current Population Trend: Unknown
Additional data:
♦ Number of mature individuals: 1-49
♦ Population severely fragmented: No
Habitat and Ecology [top]
Habitat and Ecology: There is little information available about the ecology of this species.
Systems: Terrestrial
Threats [top]
Major Threat(s): The threats to this species are not known. This species is a potential target for hunting, and this may have resulted in the species' decline, but this has not been confirmed. Large-scale sugarcane plantation development on the Aru Islands threatens 92% of the primary tropical forest, which could be a devastating loss of habitat for this species (Obidzinski et al. 2015).
Conservation Actions [top]
Conservation Actions: There are no conservation measures in place for this species. A proposed protected area (Pulau Kobroor) is within the general area where the species was found. Further studies are needed into the taxonomy, distribution, abundance, ecology, and threats of this species.
It is listed on CITES Appendix II.


www.iucnredlist.org/details/136504/0

[Sebbe]

Evidence for modern extinction in plants and animals.

We summarise evidence of extinction reported in Red List accounts of plants (170 species) and animals (816 species) listed as extinct (EX) or extinct in the wild (EW) under different versions of the Red List. We find that types of evidence and their frequency of use are remarkably consistent across plants, animals and Red List versions. The most common evidence is ‘long time missing, fewer than half of species accounts discuss search effort, and accounts of 15 % of EX/EW plants and 27 % of animals provide no reason for the EX/EW listing. We review use of extinction probability models for EX, EW and Critically Endangered species flagged as possibly extinct, and find that 155 species have been subjects of extinction probability models. Nearly all models applied to birds and mammals agree that the species are extinct. Seventeen statistical models for estimating the probability that a species is extinct based on search effort, traits and detection rate have been published since 1993 and applied to EX, EW, or CR(PE) species. A tiny fraction (0.6 %) of Red List accounts currently include published model results; thus extinction probability modelling has been largely independent of Red Listing. This is likely to change, because since 2019, Red List guidelines provide templates for quantitative estimates of extinction likelihood. Combining statistical models with assessments of species' probability of extinction based on other criteria can strengthen extinction listings of plants and animals, and add to our understanding of the scale of modern species loss.

www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0006320724003343

[Sebbe]

Extinct or still out there? Disentangling influences on extinction and rediscovery helps to clarify the fate of species on the edge.

Each year, two or three species that had been considered to be extinct are rediscovered. Uncertainty about whether or not a species is extinct is common, because rare and highly threatened species are difficult to detect. Biological traits such as body size and range size are expected to be associated with extinction. However, these traits, together with the intensity of search effort, might influence the probability of detection and extinction differently. This makes statistical analysis of extinction and rediscovery challenging. Here we use a variant of survival analysis known as cure rate modelling to differentiate factors that influence rediscovery from those that influence extinction. We analyse a global dataset of 99 mammals that have been categorised as extinct or possibly extinct. We estimate the probability that each of these mammals is still extant, and thus estimate the proportion of missing (presumed extinct) mammals that are incorrectly assigned extinction. We find that body mass and population density are predictors of extinction, and body mass and search effort predict rediscovery. In mammals, extinction rate increases with body mass and population density, and these traits act synergistically to greatly elevate extinction rate in large species that also occurred in formerly dense populations. However, when they remain extant, larger-bodied missing species are rediscovered sooner than smaller species. Greater search effort increases the probability of rediscovery in larger species of missing mammals, but has a minimal effect on small species, which take longer to be rediscovered, if extant. By separating the effects of species characteristics on extinction and detection, and using models with the assumption that a proportion of missing species will never be rediscovered, our new approach provides estimates of extinction probability in species with few observation records and scant ecological information.

www.researchgate.net/publication/305201346_Extinct_or_still_out_there_Disentangling_influences_on_extinction_and_rediscovery_helps_to_clarify_the_fate_of_species_on_the_edge