The Indian Short-nosed Fruit Bat Cynopterus sphinx fed on the pieces of banana fruit that were dropped by monkeys on the tower of a temple and in nearby shops.  The monkeys obtained fruits from devotees and shop owners.  The peak number of bat visits occurred during pre- and post- midnight hours at the tower and shops, respectively, coinciding with the lights off situation and reduced human disturbance.  The bats landed on bunches of ripe bananas hanging in the front of shops.  The number of bat landings on the tower was greater than that in the shops.  The overall number of bat visits were higher during October when compared to other periods of the year.  This may be due to the occurrence of more festivals during October.  Our study is an example of opportunistic feeding, in which banana pieces dropped while monkeys were feeding on them were eaten by the bats.

<p>Excessive water loss during the day due to heat stress in bats of the genus <em>Pteropus</em> appears to be inevitable, because these bats are exposed to direct sunlight.  Rain also affects the rest pattern of the Indian Flying Fox <em>Pteropus giganteus </em>during the day.  When rain occurred during the day, most of the bats hung in a slanting position and did not exhibit any movements.  After rain, they licked both ventral and dorsal surfaces of the wing membrane and scratched their body with their thumb claws.  They also licked the water droplets that remained on the leaves and branches of the tree.  Even though their rest had been affected by the rain the bats utilized the water droplets to quench their thirst, cool their body and clean their fur.  The construction of water reservoirs near <em>Pteropus </em>roosts will help to assure their long-term conservation.</p><div> </div>

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Bats are nocturnal animals with functional eyes and M/L and S opsin genes in the majority of the species. These genes are prerequisite for daylight, UV and dichromatic colour vision. Several studies suggest that other non-visual lightsensitive pigments are also involved in the UV light perception in animals. Recent behavioural, molecular and immunohistochemical evidence supports that the opsin-like gene, neuropsin (OPN5), is identified in humans, mice and birds, where it serves as a G protein-coupled UV-sensitive photoreceptor. Based on its low sequence homology with other opsin groups, OPN5 is classified as an independent group. While the roles of non-visual light-sensitive pigment OPN5 in bats remain an open question, here we report that bat's neuropsin (OPN5) encoded by OPN5 gene shares 89-96% amino acid identity and similar domain organization with human and mouse OPN5. By PCR amplification, we confirm that all the mega and micro bats express the OPN5 gene in their genome. The expression of OPN5 is detectable only in the brain, eye and retina and not in the heart, kidney, liver, lungs and testis. This result suggests that OPN5 gene expression is neural specific in bats. OPN5 gene expression level is significantly higher in tree-roosting bats compared to cave-roosting bats. Since, the tree-roosting bats received slightly more sunlight every day when compared to cave-roosting bats. In captive conditions, the expression levels of OPN5 in the neural tissues are significantly lower than those of wild bats. Our preliminary results suggest that the opsin-like gene, neuropsin (OPN5) is involved in UV light perception in bats.