Most species have small rodent-like faces, but the hammerhead fish (Hypsignathus monstrosus) is in a league of its own. The strange-looking flying animal has a super elongated face that makes many who see photos of it on social media question its existence. However, despite its larger-than-life appearance, the hammerhead is very real.
Credit: SARAH H. OLSON.The hammerhead fish, also known as hammerhead fish and hammerlip fish, is a gigantic species whose range is distributed throughout the tropical forests of central Africa. It prefers moist lowland forests, riparian forests and exchange forests, as well as mangroves and palm forests where it perches in trees.With a massive wingspan of up to 38 inches (97 cm), the hammerhead is the largest bat in Africa. Their average body length, however, is a much more modest 10 inches (25 cm). Males are significantly larger than females. In fact, it is the males that grow large heads with an enlarged face, larynx and lips that make the species so recognizable, while the females look like other fruits.
Unlike other flattop species that segregate based on ?ℯ?, hammerhead males and females will congregate in groups ranging from as small as four to as large as twenty-five.Males and females have different foraging strategies, and females use trapping, in which they follow an established route with predictable food sources, even if that food may be of lower quality. Males employ a much riskier strategy, traveling up to 6 miles (10 km) in search of particularly good food patches. When birds find food they like, they may nibble on the tree for a bit before picking some fruit and taking it somewhere else for consumption.
Their breeding season lasts from one to three months. These plans exhibit classic lekking, meaning that many male suitors will congregate at one site and engage in competitive displays and courtship rituals, known as lekking, to attract visiting females. To court females seeking prospective mates, males make a peculiar calling sound.
“I am simply in awe of the hammerhead fruits <em>(Hypsignathus monstrosus).</em> The close-up of any feature, eye, fur, nose, ear, wing or foot, is extraordinary. On the hand, whiskers appear in patterns seemingly unique to each individual, and the nasal and labial folds of adult males, like the one shown, provide a sculptural finish to the overall moose-headed appearance. As we handle them to collect samples, they display distinctive traits ranging from docile to tooth-crushing, hence the thick leather gloves. Functionally, like Africa’s largest fruits (males weigh about a pound), they are flying seed dispersal machines, critical to the health of the equatorial forest,” wrote Sarah Olson, associate director of wildlife health at the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS). , in a 2018 blog post.
Credit: SARAH H. OLSON.Olson and his colleagues have been studying these rather elusive planes for several years to better understand their ecology and way of being. Perhaps this can also prove very important in the future, considering all the difficulties of the pandemic still fresh in everyone’s minds.
Blessing the timeline with a hammerhead blow. You are welcome. Credit: twitter el corránant de devil
The hammerhead fish is just one of three species of African fruit fish that can be asymptomatically infected with the dreaded Eola virus, although scientists have yet to establish whether the species is an incidental host or reservoir for the virus.
“In addition to threats to human health, this deadly virus is linked to massive declines in western lowland gorilla populations in the Congo and Gabon. Our job as scientists is to find a way to prevent Ebola outbreaks and help preserve these states for future generations, one at a time,” Olson said.<em>This article was originally published in June 2021.</em>
