How to Use fruit bat in a Sentence

fruit bat

noun
  • Egyptian fruit bats eat a lot of fruit.
    — Scott Lafee, San Diego Union-Tribune, 23 Dec. 2025
  • Experts believe African fruit bats may be the source of the virus.
    — Jane Weaver, NBC news, 29 May 2026
  • The list includes birds, mussels, a fruit bat, a fish, and a flower.
    — Sara Tabin, Forbes, 4 Oct. 2021
  • Old World fruit bats are common across southern Asia.
    — Cecilia Rodriguez, Forbes.com, 26 Aug. 2025
  • In the trees lining the avenues, thousands of fruit bats roost through the day and then take flight at dusk.
    — Samanth Subramanian, The Dial, 14 Oct. 2025
  • African fruit bats are the reservoir hosts of the virus, the CDC said.
    — Natalie Neysa Alund, USA TODAY, 22 Mar. 2023
  • But Rodrigues fruit bats are small, about 14 inches long as adults.
    — John Wilkens, sandiegouniontribune.com, 17 Sep. 2017
  • Nipah, which comes from fruit bats and animals such as pigs, can cause a lethal, brain-swelling fever in humans.
    — Reuters, NBC News, 22 July 2024
  • The virus is most often spread by fruit bats, and can spread through direct or indirect contact.
    — Mary Kekatos, ABC News, 29 Jan. 2026
  • Experts believe that fruit bats are the likely carriers of the virus.
    — Erika Edwards, NBC news, 18 May 2026
  • That’s because the fruit bats that transmit the virus — among the largest bats in the world — are native to these regions.
    — Michal Ruprecht, CNN Money, 30 Jan. 2026
  • Richard Dolbeer was once the man to call if millions of blackbirds or fruit bats were ravaging your fields.
    — Brendan I. Koerner, Wired, 24 Jan. 2020
  • But no direct test had ever been performed in a highly social setting, such as in a fruit bat colony.
    — Jake Buehler, Quanta Magazine, 31 Oct. 2023
  • Carried by fruit bats and animals such as pigs, the virus can cause fever and brain inflammation.
    — Reuters, NBC news, 30 Jan. 2026
  • The virus is spread to humans who have direct contact with animals that are infected, like fruit bats or pigs.
    — Alexandra Sifferlin, Time, 22 May 2018
  • The Nipah virus is transmitted to humans from animals such as fruit bats or pigs.
    — Sam Meredith, CNBC, 25 July 2024
  • The greater short-nosed fruit bat can be found in the tropical forests of South and Southeast Asia.
    — Discover Magazine, 20 Oct. 2015
  • The tour begins with the butterflies, migrates to fruit bats and from there to see exotic birds and their trainers.
    — Bradley J. Fikes, sandiegouniontribune.com, 9 Mar. 2018
  • Outbreaks of Marburg are thought to be sparked when the virus jumps to humans from animals, likely fruit bats.
    — Beth Mole, Ars Technica, 15 Feb. 2023
  • It was already known that the reptiles hang from the ceiling at the cave entrance and catch Jamaican fruit bats that roost inside.
    — National Geographic, 3 June 2017
  • Raman located six roosting sites for these fruit bats within a 1-km radius in Kozhikode.
    — WIRED, 22 Sep. 2023
  • Marburg outbreaks start when an infected animal, such as a monkey or a fruit bat, passes the virus to a human.
    — Time, 10 Aug. 2021
  • The researchers captured Egyptian fruit bat mothers and pups from a cave just outside Tel Aviv.
    — New York Times, 4 Dec. 2021
  • The virus can spread through interactions with wildlife like a fruit bat or exposure to body fluids or blood from an infected person.
    — Alyssa Hui, Verywell Health, 14 Apr. 2023
  • The virus, rarely detected in humans, is endemic among the African region’s jumbo-sized fruit bats.
    — David Willman and Joby Warrick, Anchorage Daily News, 11 Apr. 2023
  • Also avoid contact with fruit bats and primates in areas where there are outbreaks, since both animals are known to be carriers for the virus.
    — Jen Christensen, CNN, 6 Apr. 2023
  • The Indian flying fox, one of more than 1,100 species of bats, is also known as the giant fruit bat.
    — Discover Magazine, 15 Sep. 2014
  • Marburg is believed to have originated in African fruit bats and may have spread to people working in mines and or visiting caves.
    — Rael Ombuor, Washington Post, 23 Mar. 2023
  • In fact, a recent study of bat ear bones suggests that fruit bats never had the ability to echolocate, which would be a vote in favor of the flight-first theory.
    — Jason Bittel, Smithsonian, 23 Mar. 2017
  • The animal host of Ebola is widely believed to be the fruit bat, although scientists haven’t been able to confirm this.
    — Julia Belluz, Vox, 11 May 2018

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'fruit bat.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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