Guam Flying-fox Pteropus tokudae. Original artwork from A Gap in Nature.

1998.
Watercolour and gouache on Arches paper, 620 x 470mm, framed, signed and dated by artist.

Last Record: June 1974. Distribution: Guam, Marianas Islands, Micronesia.

Guam is the largest and southernmost of the Marianas Islands, and once was home to a diverse and unique fauna, including the tiny Guam flying-fox. Evidently it was always rare. It was first recorded in 1931, its obscurity before that time perhaps relating to the fact that it roosted with the larger and much more common Marianas flying-fox.
The last specimen collected was a female found roosting at Tarague cliff in March 1967. She was accompanied by a young one that escaped capture. Although a probable sighting was made in June 1974, a survey during 1987 failed to reveal the presence of the species, and local hunters questioned in the 1970s presumed it to be very rare or extinct. Nothing is known of its biology. Hunting or habitat change may have been factors in its extinction.
Since the loss of this flying-fox, Guam has experienced a cascade of extinctions brought about by the introduction of the brown tree snake (Boiga irregularis). As a result its forests are now largely silent, the island having lost many of its pollinators and fruit dispersers. The fate of Guam's ecology in the wake of such destruction should be of much interest to biologists, as many regions may come to resemble it in future.