The inner margin of the nostrils projects, a preparation for the tubular nostrils of Harpyia. The tail is absent. The premolars are three and the molars two. The pyloric region of the stomach is extended and twisted upon itself. Of this genus there are nearly sixty species, extending from Madagascar to Queensland. Thirty species inhabit the Australian, twenty the Oriental region. Madagascar has seven, and one species just enters the Palaearctic. The occurrence of this genus in India and in Madagascar is one of those facts which favour the view supported, on these and other grounds, by Dr. Dobson and Dr. Blanford that a connexion between India and Madagascar must once have existed; for these slow-flying creatures could hardly be believed capable of traversing vast stretches of ocean by their unaided efforts.[1]
Fig. 257.—Flying Fox. Pteropus poliocephalus. × ⅓.
Pteropus is represented in the Ethiopian region by the allied genus Epomophorus. Of this there are perhaps a dozen species. The teeth are reduced to two premolars in the upper jaw,
- ↑ See Dobson, Ann. Nat. Hist. (5) xiv. 1884, p. 153.
