Overview
- The Journal of Mammalogy paper published Thursday, Oct. 29, 2026 measured skulls and teeth from 121 museum specimens collected over roughly 150 years and found skull length fell by about 3.6 mm, or 6 percent, after the 1980s.
- Analyses show a clear drop in average body size beginning around 1980 that coincides with the shift from subsistence to commercial hunting of flying foxes in Madagascar.
- Authors hypothesize that hunters selectively removing the largest and often older breeding individuals could change population structure and drive the observed shrinkage.
- Researchers say flying fox numbers have fallen sharply since the early 2000s — from an estimated 300,000 then to roughly a two-thirds decline now — and they call for stronger protections at breeding sites and urgent monitoring.
- The study emphasizes the value of historical museum collections for detecting long-term biological change while noting other possible drivers such as deforestation, climate shifts, and altered fruiting seasons and urging genetic and ecological follow-up work.