Philippine flying lemur

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Philippine flying lemur
Flying Lemur & Baby, Bohol.jpg
Scientific classification OOjs UI icon edit-ltr.svg
Domain: Eukaryota
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Mammalia
Order: Dermoptera
Family: Cynocephalidae
Genus: Cynocephalus
Boddaert, 1768
Species:
C. volans
Binomial name
Cynocephalus volans
Philippine Flying Lemur area.png
Philippine flying lemur range
Synonyms
Genus-level synonyms
  • Colugo
  • Dermopterus
  • Galeolemur
  • Galeopithecus
  • Galeopus
  • Pleuropterus
Species-level synonyms
  • Lemur volansLinnaeus, 1758

The Philippine flying lemur or Philippine colugo (Cynocephalus volans), known locally as kagwang, is one of two species of colugo or "flying lemurs". It is monotypic of its genus. Although it is called "flying lemur", the Philippine flying lemur is neither a lemur nor does it fly. Instead, it glides as it leaps among trees.

Contents

The kagwang belongs to the order Dermoptera that contains only two species, one of which is found in the Philippines, while the other, the Sunda flying lemur, is found in Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia, and Singapore. Recent research from genetic analysis suggests two other species, the Bornean flying lemur and the Javan flying lemur, may exist, as well, but they have yet to be officially classified.

Both species of Dermoptera are classified under the grandorder Euarchonta, which includes treeshrews and primates, as well as an extinct order of mammals, the Plesiadapiformes. [3]

Habitat and ecology

The Philippine flying lemur is endemic to the southern Philippines. [4] Its population is concentrated in the Mindanao region and Bohol. It may also be found in Samar and Leyte. [5]

Colugos are found in heavily forested areas, living mainly high up in the trees in lowland and mountainous forests or sometimes in coconut and rubber plantations, rarely coming down to the ground. [4] They spend most of their time at the top of the rainforest canopy or in the forest middle level. With their wide patagia and unopposable thumbs, Philippine flying lemurs are rather slow, clumsy climbers, ascending tree trunks in a series of slow lurches with their heads up and limbs spread to grasp the tree.

Physical features

Cynocephalus volans Cynocephalus volans 2.jpg
Cynocephalus volans

A typical Philippine flying lemur weighs about 1.0 to 1.7 kg (2.2 to 3.7 lb) and its head-body length is 33–38 cm (13–15 in). Its tail length is 17–27 cm (6.5–10.5 in). [6] The species exhibits sexual dimorphism with females being somewhat larger than males. It has a wide head and rostrum with a robust mandible for increased bite strength, small ears, and big eyes with unique photoreceptor adaptations adapted for its nocturnal lifestyle. The large eyes allow for excellent vision, which the colugo uses to accurately jump and glide from tree to tree. [7] It has an avascular retina which is not typical of mammals, suggesting this is a primitive trait; on par with other nocturnal mammals, specifically nocturnal primates, the rod cells in the eye make up about 95–99% of the photoreceptors and cones make up about 1–5%. [3]

Its clawed feet are large and sharp with an incredible grip strength, allowing them to skillfully but slowly climb trees, hang from branches, or anchor themselves to the trunk of a tree. [7] One unique feature of the colugo is the patagium, the weblike membrane that connects its limbs to allow for gliding. Unlike other mammals with patagia, its patagium extends from the neck to the limbs, in between digits, and even behind the hind limbs and the tail. Its keeled sternum, which is also seen in bats, aids in its gliding efficiency. [4] Its patagium is the most extensive membrane used for gliding in mammals and also functions as a hammock-like pouch for its young. This membrane helps it glide distances of 100 m or more, useful for finding food and escaping predators, such as the Philippine eagle (Pithecophaga jefferyi) and tree-climbing snakes that try to attack the colugos when they glide between trees. [8] [9]

The dental formula of the Philippine flying lemur is 2/3, 1/1, 2/2, 3/3, with a total of 34 teeth. The first two lower procumbent incisors are pectinate with up to 15 tines, which are thought to be used for grooming and grating food. [4] The upper incisors are small and have spaces between them, as well. [4] The deciduous teeth are serrated until they are lost and then they are replaced with blade-like teeth that have evolved to shear along with the molars that also have long shearing crests to help break down the plant matter they ingest. [10] Following mastication, the digestive tract of the Philippine flying lemur, especially the stomach, is specially adapted to break down and process the large amount of leaves and vegetation they ingest. [7] Colugos also have a brownish grey-and-white pelage they use as camouflage amongst the tree trunks and branches, which allows them to better hide from predators and hunters. [4]

Diet

The Philippine flying lemur is a folivore, eating mainly young leaves and occasionally soft fruits, flowers, plant shoots, and insects. They also obtain a significant amount of their water from licking wet leaves and from the water in the plants and fruits themselves. [7] Most of their nutrition is obtained by jumping and gliding between trees high in the canopy; rarely do they eat on the forest floor.

Behaviour

The Philippine flying lemur is arboreal and nocturnal, and usually resides in primary and secondary forests, but some wander into coconut, banana, and rubber plantations as deforestation for farming and industry is an increasingly prevalent problem. The colugo sleeps in hollow trees or clings onto branches in dense foliage during daytime. [9] When they engage in this hanging behaviour from branches, they keep their heads upright, unlike bats. [4]

On the ground, colugos are slow and clumsy, and not able to stand erect, so they rarely leave the canopy level of the forest, where they glide from tree to tree to get to food or their nests, which are also high in the trees. In the trees, though, colugos are quite effective climbers, though they are slow; they move in a series of lingering hops as they use their claws to move up the tree trunk. [7] Foraging only at night, colugos on average forage for 9.4 minutes about 12 times per night. [4] They typically leave their nests at dusk to begin their foraging activity. [11] When foraging, returning to the nest, or just moving around, the Philippine flying lemur uses its patagium to glide from tree to tree. The patagium is also used for cloaking the colugo when it is clinging to a tree trunk or branch, and sometimes it is even seen curled up in a ball, using its patagium again as a cloaking mechanism among palm fronds often in coconut plantations. [7]

Patagium seen on museum specimen colugo E - Desmodus rotundus and Cynocephalus volans.jpg
Patagium seen on museum specimen colugo

Colugos maintain height in the trees to avoid predators that may live in lower levels, but they are still susceptible to other predators that can reach these higher levels of the canopy and predatory birds that can attack from above. They live alone, but several may be seen in the same tree, where they maintain their distance from one another and are very territorial of their personal areas. [9] Though they are not social mammals, they do engage in a unique semi-social behaviour where colugos living in the same relative area or tree follow each other's gliding paths through the trees in search of food. [9] This may be a defence mechanism, whereas a population, the safest route possible is determined and shared as a sort of cooperative mechanism for increased survival rates. The only time colugos actually live socially is after a mother has given birth; then she will care for and live with her offspring until they are weaned; at that point, the offspring are on their own. [9] The average lifespan of the Philippine flying lemur is unknown.

Reproduction

Little is known about the reproductive behaviour in colugos. The female usually gives birth to one young after a two-month gestation period. [11] The young is born undeveloped and helpless, and it attaches itself to its mother's belly, in a pouch formed from the mother's tail membrane. It is eventually weaned around 6 months old, and leaves its mother's patagium. [11] Adult size and sexual maturity is reached between two and three years of age. [7] Mating usually occurs between January and March. [9]

Major threats

The Philippine flying lemur is threatened by massive destruction of its forest habitat, owing partly to logging and the development of land for agriculture. [12]

It is a primary prey of the Philippine eagle making up to 90% of the eagle's diet. [13] It is also hunted by humans for food. [12]

Conservation

Mother with infant Lemur.JPG
Mother with infant

The IUCN 1996 had declared the species vulnerable owing to the destruction of lowland forests and to hunting, but it was listed as least concern in 2008. The 2008 IUCN report indicates the species persists in the face of degraded habitat, with its current population large enough to avoid the threatened category. [1] Since colugos have limited dispersal abilities, they are increasingly vulnerable as deforestation is occurring at increasing rates. [14] Other threats to the species include hunting by the farmers of the plantations they sometimes invade, where they are considered pests, since they eat fruits and flowers. In local cultures, their flesh is also consumed as a delicacy; other uses of the colugo vary in different regions of the Philippines. In Bohol, their fur is used as material for native hats, but in Samar, the species is considered a bad omen and is killed either to be used as a warning or to get rid of the omen. [1] The animal is largely unknown in many areas in the Philippines such that on Facebook, its image was once mistaken for a supernatural creature that was said to feed on other animals, though in reality, the endangered species is a folivore that feeds on fruits, flowers, and leaves. [15]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Colugo</span> Family of mammals

Colugos are arboreal gliding mammals that are native to Southeast Asia. Their closest evolutionary relatives are primates. There are just two living species of colugos: the Sunda flying lemur and the Philippine flying lemur. These two species make up the entire family Cynocephalidae and order Dermoptera.

<i>Draco</i> (lizard) Genus of lizards

Draco is a genus of agamid lizards that are also known as flying lizards, flying dragons or gliding lizards. These lizards are capable of gliding flight via membranes that may be extended to create wings (patagia), formed by an enlarged set of ribs. They are arboreal insectivores.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Flying squirrel</span> Tribe of mammals

Flying squirrels are a tribe of 50 species of squirrels in the family Sciuridae. Despite their name, they are not in fact capable of full flight in the same way as birds or bats, but they are able to glide from one tree to another with the aid of a patagium, a furred skin membrane that stretches from wrist to ankle. Their long tails also provide stability as they glide. Anatomically they are very similar to other squirrels with a number of adaptations to suit their lifestyle; their limb bones are longer and their hand bones, foot bones, and distal vertebrae are shorter. Flying squirrels are able to steer and exert control over their glide path with their limbs and tail.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Southern flying squirrel</span> Species of rodent

The southern flying squirrel or the assapan is one of three species of flying squirrel found in North America. It is found in deciduous and mixed woods in the eastern half of North America, from southeastern Canada to Florida. Disjunct populations of this species have been recorded in the highlands of Mexico, Guatemala, and Honduras.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Northern flying squirrel</span> Species of rodent

The northern flying squirrel is one of three species of the genus Glaucomys, the only flying squirrels found in North America. They are found in coniferous and mixed coniferous forests across much of Canada, from Alaska to Nova Scotia, and south to the mountains of North Carolina and west to Utah in the United States. They are light brown with pale underparts and grow to a length of 25 to 37 cm. They are proficient gliders but uncoordinated walkers on the ground. They feed on a variety of plant material as well as tree sap, fungi, insects, carrion, bird eggs and nestlings. They mostly breed once a year in a cavity lined with lichen or other soft material. Except when they have young, they change nests frequently, and in winter a number of individuals may huddle together in a shared nest. Unlike most members of their family, flying squirrels are strictly nocturnal.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Anomalure</span> Family of rodents

The Anomaluridae are a family of rodents found in central Africa. They are known as anomalures or scaly-tailed squirrels or [African] flying squirrels. The six extant species are classified into two genera.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Patagium</span> Membranous structure that assists an animal in gliding or flight

The patagium is a membranous body part that assists an animal in obtaining lift when gliding or flying. The structure is found in extant and extinct groups of flying and gliding animals including bats, birds, some dromaeosaurs, pterosaurs, gliding mammals, some flying lizards, and flying frogs. The patagium that stretches between an animal's hind limbs is called the uropatagium or the interfemoral membrane.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">New World flying squirrel</span> Genus of rodents

The three species of New World flying squirrels, genus Glaucomys, are the only species of flying squirrel found in North America. They are distributed from Alaska to Honduras. They are similar in many ways to the Eurasian flying squirrels in the genus Pteromys. Two species of New World flying squirrels can be easily distinguished on the basis of size and ventral pelage. Northern flying squirrels, Glaucomys sabrinus are larger and have belly hair that is dark at the base and white at the tip. Southern flying squirrels, Glaucomys volans, are smaller and have belly hairs that are completely white. Humboldt's flying squirrel is more difficult to distinguish from the northern flying squirrel where their ranges overlap. In fact, they were once considered conspecific. Humboldt's flying squirrel is considered a cryptic species. They are generally smaller and darker than northern flying squirrels.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Siberian flying squirrel</span> Species of rodent

The Siberian flying squirrel is an Old World flying squirrel ranging from the Baltic Sea in the west, throughout Northern Asia to the coast of the Pacific Ocean in the east. It is the only species of flying squirrel in Europe and is considered vulnerable in the European Union where it occurs only in Estonia and Finland. In Latvia, it was last sighted in 2001 and has been considered to be locally extinct since 2013.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Flying and gliding animals</span> Animals that have evolved aerial locomotion

A number of animals are capable of aerial locomotion, either by powered flight or by gliding. This trait has appeared by evolution many times, without any single common ancestor. Flight has evolved at least four times in separate animals: insects, pterosaurs, birds, and bats. Gliding has evolved on many more occasions. Usually the development is to aid canopy animals in getting from tree to tree, although there are other possibilities. Gliding, in particular, has evolved among rainforest animals, especially in the rainforests in Asia where the trees are tall and widely spaced. Several species of aquatic animals, and a few amphibians and reptiles have also evolved this gliding flight ability, typically as a means of evading predators.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sunda flying lemur</span> Species of mammal

The Sunda flying lemur, also called Malayan flying lemur and Malayan colugo is the sole colugo species of the genus Galeopterus. It is native to Southeast Asia from southern Myanmar, Thailand, southern Vietnam, Malaysia to Singapore and Indonesia and listed as Least Concern on the IUCN Red List. Although it is called "flying lemur", it cannot fly but glides among trees and is strictly arboreal. It is active at night, and feeds on soft plant parts such as young leaves, shoots, flowers, and fruits. It is a forest-dependent species.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Greater glider</span> Genus of marsupials

The greater gliders are three species of large gliding marsupials in the genus Petauroides, all of which are found in eastern Australia. Until 2020 they were considered to be one species, Petauroides volans. In 2020 morphological and genetic differences, obtained using diversity arrays technology, showed there were three species subsumed under this one name. The two new species were named Petauroides armillatus and Petauroides minor.

Gliding flight is heavier-than-air flight without the use of thrust; the term volplaning also refers to this mode of flight in animals. It is employed by gliding animals and by aircraft such as gliders. This mode of flight involves flying a significant distance horizontally compared to its descent and therefore can be distinguished from a mostly straight downward descent like a round parachute.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Beecroft's flying squirrel</span> Species of rodent

Beecroft's flying squirrel or Beecroft's scaly-tailed squirrel, is a species of rodent in the family Anomaluridae. Some authorities consider it to be monotypic within the genus Anomalurops. Its natural habitats are subtropical or tropical dry forests, subtropical or tropical moist lowland forests, and plantations. It is threatened by habitat destruction but is a common species with a wide range and the International Union for Conservation of Nature has rated its conservation status as being of "least concern".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pel's flying squirrel</span> Species of rodent

Pel's flying squirrel or Pel's scaly-tailed squirrel is a species of rodent in the family Anomaluridae. It is found in Liberia, Ivory Coast, and Ghana, where it lives in lowland tropical rainforests. It is named after Hendrik Pel.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dwarf scaly-tailed squirrel</span> Species of rodent

The dwarf scaly-tailed squirrel is a species of rodent in the family Anomaluridae. It is found in Cameroon, Central African Republic, Republic of the Congo, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon and Uganda. The species is nocturnal and arboreal and lives in subtropical or tropical lowland rainforest. Membranes attached to its limbs and tail enable it to glide between trees. This squirrel is currently not considered to be threatened by habitat destruction; "much of the habitat within parts of the known range of this species is relatively intact, and the species is unlikely to be experiencing any significant declines."

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Red and white giant flying squirrel</span> Species of rodent

The red and white giant flying squirrel is a species of rodent in the family Sciuridae. It is a very large, dark rufous-red, buff and white flying squirrel found in forests at altitudes of 800–3,500 m (2,600–11,500 ft) in mainland China and 1,200–3,750 m (3,940–12,300 ft) in Taiwan, although the population of the latter island is distinctive and likely better regarded as a separate species, the Taiwan giant flying squirrel. Additionally, the red and white giant flying squirrel possibly ranges into northeastern South Asia and far northern Mainland Southeast Asia. This squirrel has a wide range and is relatively common, and the International Union for Conservation of Nature lists it as being of "least concern".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Indian giant flying squirrel</span> Species of rodent

The Indian giant flying squirrel, also called the large brown flying squirrel or the common giant flying squirrel, is a species of rodent in the family Sciuridae. It is capable of gliding flight using a skin membrane, the patagium, stretched between front and hind legs. It is found in mainland Southeast and South Asia, and southern and central China.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Japanese dwarf flying squirrel</span> Species of rodent

The Japanese dwarf flying squirrel is one of two species of Old World flying squirrels in the genus Pteromys. During the day this squirrel hides in a hole, usually in a coniferous tree, emerging at night to feed.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ezo flying squirrel</span> Subspecies of mammal

The Ezo flying squirrel or Ezo-momonga is a subspecies of the Siberian flying squirrel. It is endemic to Hokkaidō, Japan, part of the region once known as Ezo. In the legends of the local Ainu, the Ezo flying squirrel or A-kamui is a tutelary deity of children. Together with the Ezo chipmunk and Ezo squirrel, it is one of the three sciurids found on the island, to the north of Blakiston's Line, each having its own particular ecological niche.

References

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