Morrison Douglas W
Department of Zoology and Physiology, Rutgers University, 07102, Newark, New Jersey, USA.
Oecologia. 1980 May;45(2):270-273. doi: 10.1007/BF00346469.
Neotropical fruit bats consume figs (Ficus spp.) and other fruit in small bites which they suck dry and drop as pellets. The swallowed juice transits the short digestive system in 0.5 h or less. The efficiency of this unusual mode of feeding was determined by comparing the nutritional content of pellets, feces and urine of captive Artibeus jamaicensis to that of the wild figs (Ficus insipida) they had been fed. The bats extracted 57% of the wet weight and 37% of the dry weight of the fruit. The swallowed juice contained 40% of the non-fiber carbohydrate present in whole figs and was digested almost completely. Of the 160±37 seeds per fig, roughly 80% were swallowed, but almost all of these were passed intact in the feces. Overall 25-30% of the metabolizable calories in the figs were swallowed and absorbed. This mode of feeding enables the bats to extract the readily digestable calories from up to 2x their 50 g body weights in figs each night while never having to fly with more than a few grams of food in their guts at any one time.
新热带果蝠一小口一小口地吃无花果（榕属植物）和其他水果，它们吸干果肉后将果核作为颗粒状吐出。咽下的果汁在0.5小时或更短时间内通过短消化系统。通过比较圈养的 Jamaicensis 叶鼻蝠的颗粒、粪便和尿液的营养成分与它们所食用的野生无花果（Ficus insipida）的营养成分，确定了这种不寻常进食方式的效率。蝙蝠摄取了水果湿重的57%和干重的37%。咽下的果汁含有整个无花果中40%的非纤维碳水化合物，并且几乎被完全消化。每个无花果有160±37颗种子，大约80%被咽下，但几乎所有这些种子都完整地随粪便排出。总体而言，无花果中25 - 30%的可代谢热量被咽下并吸收。这种进食方式使蝙蝠每晚能够从多达其体重50克两倍的无花果中提取易于消化的热量，同时在任何时候肠道中携带的食物都不会超过几克。
