Little red flying fox Little red flying fox The little red flying fox ("Pteropus scapulatus") is a species of megabat native to northern and eastern Australia. With a weight of , it is the smallest flying fox in mainland Australia (the others being the black, spectacled, and grey-headed flying foxes). It has the widest range of all the species, going much further inland than the larger fruit bats. Its diet primarily consists of nectar and pollen of eucalypt blossoms, the pollination of which it is largely responsible. The little red flying fox is nomadic, and can be found in large groups of up to
Andersen's flying fox was described as a new species in 1908 by Danish mammalogist Knud Andersen. The holotype had been collected by William Ruxton Davison and presented to Andersen by Allan Octavian Hume. There is taxonomic uncertainty regarding this species: some have published that it is likely synonymous with the Indian flying fox while other have published that it is synonymous with the large flying fox. Its species name ""intermedius"" is Latin for "intermediate;" Andersen may have chosen that name because he compared it to both the Indian flying fox and the large flying fox. Andersen wrote that it was "scarcely distinguishable" from