India GO
Indian flying fox
बड़ा चमगादड़ (bara chamgadar)
India's largest bat, with a wingspan over a metre, roosting by day in huge noisy colonies in a few tall trees.
👀 How to recognise it
Look up at a big banyan or silk-cotton and the «leaves» will be moving and arguing. At sunset the whole colony streams out in one direction.
Protection
Listed under the Wildlife (Protection) Act 1972; formerly treated as vermin, now protected
Where to see it
Goa
Roost trees are often centuries old and known to everyone locally; the bats are fruit-eaters and important pollinators of mahua and silk-cotton.
Garcia de Orta Garden (Panjim Municipal Garden) (in season) · Sahakari Spice Farm (often) · Arvalem Waterfall & Rudreshwar Caves (in season)
Kolkata
A 2017 study counted about 945 flying foxes in the colony over Alipore Zoo and followed them out at dusk: they fed within about 1.3 kilometres of the roost, and banyans drew the most bats, then peepals.
AJC Bose Indian Botanic Garden & the Great Banyan (often) · Alipore Zoological Garden (often) · The Maidan (in season)
Mayapur
Roost trees are often centuries old and known to everyone locally; the bats are fruit-eaters and important pollinators of mahua and silk-cotton.
Bethuadahari Wildlife Sanctuary (in season)
Mumbai
Rani Baug, laid out as a botanical garden in 1861, has more trees than any other site in the island city, and the foundation that campaigns to protect it describes its canopy as home to Mumbai's largest colony of fruit bats.
Rani Baug (often) · Hanging Gardens & Kamala Nehru Park (in season) · Sanjay Gandhi National Park (often)
Udupi
Roost colonies in South India often sit on temple trees and are left undisturbed for that reason. To find the roost trees around Udupi, ask locally rather than relying on a map.
Manipal End Point