Pe'avao or the Samoan Fruit bat (Pteropus samoensis) is native to the Samoan Islands. Pe'avao is a large fruit bat with a wing span up to 3 feet wide and weighs approximately 300-600 grams. When silhouetted against the sky, the pe'avao has a more triangular shape, with wings that are slightly scalloped and relatively dark and opaque. The flight appears more relaxed, usually with slower wing beats and deeper wing strokes. It is not unusual to observe them soaring in the air in the day, taking advantage of rising currents of warm air to seemingly float up and about without flapping their wings.
Fruit bat short essay: Title: Pe’a (Fruit bats), the “founding animals” of the National Park of American Samoa.
The two species of fruit bats, Pteropus samoensis and Pteropus tonganus, are the only native land mammals found in American Samoa. Both Pteropodid species are culturally and environmentally important to the Samoan people and the survival of Faa-Samoa (Samoan culture) and their identity as Polynesians. Fruit bats are a source of Samoan paramount chief titles, and are found in many indigenous proverbs, songs, legends, and traditional oratorical language. Samoa’s traditional Tatau or tattoo (from knees to the naval) represented the shape of the fruit bat which looks like a stylized letter “W” (HaySmith et al 2009). The Samoan Pe’a or Tatau (art) symbolizes our services to our families, communities and who we are as Pacific islanders.
The National Park of American Samoa's (NPSA) enabling legislation states that protecting the remaining populations’ of fruit bats is viewed as a key factor meriting the establishment of the National Park Unit in the Samoan Archipelago (Pierson et al., 1992, p.2; Public Law 100-571). Scientists observed that the park units on Tutuila and Ta’ū Islands provide primary forest, roosting locations that are important regionally as a refuge for the Tongan and Samoan fruit bats that reside in American Samoa.
The fruit bats help maintain the biodiversity and the integrity of native forest community structure as the pollinators and seed dispersers of local plants (Banack, 1993, p.1). They are likely the only aerial dispersers capable of carrying large-seeded fruits (Mukerji, 2004) which help increase the productivity of fruit trees and distributing seeds across our forests. This aids the natural reforestation and the habitat restoration process as bats scatter nutrients across the landscape as they fly (Rainey et al., 1992). Seeds defecated in this way may have a higher germination rate (Humphrey and Bonaccoro 1979).
This ecological role of bats is vital with the disappearance of some of our potential dispersers and pollinators such as the large nectarivore, Ma’oma’o (Gymnomyza samoensis) due to habitat loss (Steadman & Martin 2003). A decline in fruit bats population may have an economically negative impact to people because many of the plants that humans need are pollinated and distributed by the fruit bats (Fujita & Turttle 1991).
The American Samoa Government and the Independent State of Samoa passed legislation to legally ban the commercial hunting and exportation of fruit bats to Guam in 1986 and 1989, respectively (Mickleburgh et al. 1992). In 1989, P. samoensis and P. tonganus were listed on the Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) as animal species in which international trade is prohibited (Craig et al 1991). P. samoensis is listed as Near Threatened by the ICUN.
