fruit bat

noun

: any of a family (Pteropodidae of the suborder Megachiroptera) of often large tropical and subtropical Old World bats that feed on ripe fruit, pollen, and nectar and that usually use visual navigation rather than echolocation

called also flying fox

Illustration of fruit bat

• fruit bat with fruit

Examples of fruit bat in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

Each year between late October and January, more than 10 million fruit bats descend on the park to feed on fruit trees. —Mazuba Kapambwe, AFAR Media, 10 Sep. 2025

Old World fruit bats are common across southern Asia. —Cecilia Rodriguez, Forbes.com, 26 Aug. 2025

Botswana’s Makgadikgadi Pans welcome tens of thousands of zebras searching for fresh grazing, while Zambia’s Kasanka National Park bat migration—the world’s largest mammal migration—sees millions of fruit bats darken the sky. —Maija De Rijk-Uys published, Travel + Leisure, 4 Aug. 2025

That deprives the island’s native fruit bats of food, forcing them to forage elsewhere. —Byrefael Kubersky, science.org, 20 Mar. 2025

Word History

First Known Use

1877, in the meaning defined above

Rhymes for fruit bat

• begat
• bobcat
• chitchat
• doormat
• ducat
• eclat
• format
• hazmat
• muskrat
• nonfat
• polecat
• thereat

Kids Definition

fruit bat

noun

: any of numerous large Old World fruit-eating bats of warm regions

called also flying fox