There are over 80 bat species (Order Chiroptera) in Australia (Reardon et al. 2015).
Bats belonging to the Family Pteropodidae, sometimes referred to as ‘megabats’, include the flying-foxes (Pteropus spp.), the eastern (Syconycteris australis) and northern blossom-bats (Mac- roglossus minimus), the bare-backed fruit-bat (Dobsonia magna) and the eastern tube-nosed bat (Nyctimene rob- insoni).
These bats feed on fruit, flowers, nectar and pollen, and perform important ecosystem services as long-distance pollinators and seed dispersers for forest trees and plants. The remaining eight Families comprise the generally smaller insectivorous and carnivorous bats often referred to as ‘microbats’. These bats roost in tree hollows, caves, rock crevices, disused mines, bridges and building cavities. During temperate winters they can enter torpor or hibernation. They are nocturnal and use echolocation to navigate and catch prey, and some species are beneficial to agriculture through the control of insect pests.Bat populations in Australia are subject to several threatening processes, including habitat destruction and fragmentation from deforestation and landscape modification (Westcott et al. 2015). The spectacled flying-fox (Pteropus conspicillatus), the grey-headed flying-fox (P. poliocephalus) and eight microbat species are listed as threatened under the Environmental Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act, 1999 (DCCEEW 2017).
Increased urbanisation of flying-foxes brings them into closer contact with people and communities. This can result in conflict, leading to persecution, as well as increased risk of trauma and misadventure (e.g. entanglement in fruit tree netting and barbed wire fencing).
Bats have received significant attention in recent years because of their role in the ecology of emerging diseases such as Hendra virus and Australian bat lyssavirus in Australia, and Ebola, Marburg and Nipah viruses overseas. Bats are also considered likely to be the ancestral reservoir host of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS-CoV-1 and SARS-CoV-2). Bat immunology is also of interest because of their ability to coexist with some viruses without clinical disease (Baker et al. 2013). Ng and Baker (2013) provide a review of diseases and pathogens of Australian flying-foxes in relation to their ecology and biology.
This chapter provides an update on current knowledge of medicine of Australian bats, including husbandry, clinical assessment and initial treatment, trauma management and diseases. Anatomy, physiology, nutrition, medicine, pathology and surgery are covered in detail in Olsson and Woods (2008), Ladds (2009) and Vogelnest and Allan (2015) and other chapters within this volume.
The term ‘flying-foxes’ is used in this chapter to refer to Pteropus spp., but in some cases the information will also be relevant to other pteropodids.
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