Nutritional Preference of Egyptian Fruit Bat, Rousettus aegyptiacus (Geoffroy) in Relation to its Control under Laboratory and Field Conditions

A., Eisa Y.E.

doi:10.21608/eajbsf.2017.17036

Nutritional Preference of Egyptian Fruit Bat, Rousettus aegyptiacus (Geoffroy) in Relation to its Control under Laboratory and Field Conditions

Document Type : Original Article

Author

Eisa Y.E. A.

Plant Protection Research Institute, Agricultural Research Center, Dokki, Giza, Egypt

10.21608/eajbsf.2017.17036

Abstract

Food preference and daily consumption of materials by the Egyptian fruit bat Rousettus aegyptiacus (Geoffroy) were investigated under laboratory conditions using free and non-choice feeding methods. The obtained results revealed that the acceptance of these materials to fruit bat relatively differed according to the type of materials and applied feeding method. Using none choice feeding method among the fruit, white mulberry was the highest accepted one to bats, while, black berry was the lowest. On the other hand, strawberry fruits ranked the first order between vegetable materials, while broad bean was the lowest one in fruitbat preference. At the same time, a tomato fruit was highly accepted by fruit bats as introduced food. The ratio of consumed diet and body weight considerably differed according to type of diet and reached the maximum in case of strawberry fruits to the ratio 90.6 % from bat body weight using free choice method. Under laboratory conditions, when zinc phosphid used in different concentrations mixed with pressed dates (Agwa) as bait, the obtained results indicated that the 1.5 % concentration achieved complete mortality (100 %) for the fruit bat community.Under the field conditions, of the Pyramids region, Giza Governorate, Zinc phosphide caused 78.2 % population reduction of the bat R. aegyptiacus.

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