ABOVE: A binturong feeding on Nauclea subdita fruit at Deramakot Forest Reserve in Sabah. At first glance the fruit in the photo above appear to be typical small bat figs which ripen green and hang from long stalks. Small Cynopterus fruit bats snatch the figs in flight and take them to a feeding perch. However a closer look indicates that the fruit are not figs but the fruit of Nauclea subdita a very common small secondary forest tree in the Rubiaceae family which are also dispersed by small fruit bats. All Binturong photos by Nicolas Rakotopare
The figs of Ficus lumutanaa typical bat dispersed fruit in BorneoRipe figs of Ficus fistulosa a typical bat dispersed fig in Borneo.Ficus callosa another bat dispersed Bornean fig.Nauclea subdita fruits are also targeted at dispersal by small fruit bats. One can say that all the plants illustrated above are members of the same guild that produces fruit for bat dispersal. One can also say that the fruit all mimic each other so that they can be easily recognized by fruit bats as bat fruits. One would also expect, although this has never been proven that all these fruit mimics share the same taste and nutritional content.According to binturong researcher Miyabi Nakabayashi a Binturong she studied at Danum would bypass all fruiting trees except figs. In other words binturongs appear to prefer figs above all other fruit. Presumably then Nauclea subdita fruit not only look like bat figs they also taste and smell like bat figs to a binturong. This hypotheses has yet to be tested.
