The puppy-sized bats of Madagascar are shrinking

It’s the stuff of nightmares. A bat the size of a large-breed puppy with five-foot-wide wingspans darting across the sky. But don’t worry. The giant flying foxes want fruit, not your blood. However, biologists do have something to worry about regarding these enormous winged mammals. Madagascar flying foxes (Pteropus rufus) are shrinking. They have been getting smaller over the past several decades, which biologists suspect may be related to an increase in large-scale commercial hunting. A s