Fruit bats are not like the small insect-eating bats found in caves. They have large eyes and excellent colour vision for spotting ripe fruit in the trees at dusk, and they navigate mostly by sight rather than echolocation. Up close, their faces look quite like a small fox — which is why they are also called flying foxes.
As fruit bats travel between trees eating fruit, they carry seeds in their gut and deposit them far from where they ate. This is called seed dispersal, and it is one of the most important jobs any animal can do for a forest. Without fruit bats spreading seeds, many of Palau's jungle trees would struggle to reproduce.
In the evening, colonies of fruit bats take to the sky over Babeldaob island, darkening the air with their numbers. Local people have traditionally cooked fruit bat as a dish for special occasions — it is a part of Palauan food heritage. Today, conservation efforts balance traditional use with keeping bat populations healthy.