The Livingstone’s flying fox is endemic to the islands of Anjouan and Mohéli of the Union of the Comoros island chain, just off the coast of Africa.
The Livingstone’s flying fox is endemic to the Union of the Comoros island chain, just off the coast of Africa, where it is only found on the islands of Anjouan, also called Nzwani, and Mohéli, also called Mwali.
The Extent of Occurrence is estimated as 1,856 km². This includes unsuitable areas of land and ocean located between patches of suitable habitat.
The total land area of Anjouan and Mohéli is a combined 635 km². However, not all this area is occupied by the Livingstone’s flying fox. The species is found within a combined area on the two islands ranging from 99.1 km² to 462.5 km². These two figures represent the possible range of this species on the two islands it inhabits. This represents a substantial decline over the past five years.
A land cover classification conducted in 2012 using high-resolution satellite imagery and extensive ground-truthing found the combined area of native forest, forest with little trace of human impact and a closed canopy, on both islands was 54.7 km² (29.6 km² in Anjouan; 25.1 km² in Moheli). The combined area of native forest and degraded forest, forest either underplanted with crops, or with localized logging or clearance for fuelwood, on both islands was 143.1 km².
Within the smallest total range on both islands, the area around all known currently occupied long-term roost sites, the Area of Occupancy is estimated to be 65.0 km². Within the largest total range on both islands, the equivalent estimate for Area of Occupancy is 188.4 km². Thus, the estimated total Area of Occupancy for this species is 65.0 – 188.4 km².
• Image | © Andrew Thompson, All Rights Reserved
• Sources | (Daniel, et al., 2016; Dewey & Long, 2007; Green, 2014; Emanoil, Edward, Kasinec, 1994; Sewall, Young, Trewhella, Rodríguez-Clark, & Granek, 2016; Wikipedia, 2018)
