Scientists in the dense forest canopies of Malaysia have discovered the first wild male mammals that lactate: the Dayak fruit bat, a creature with an 18-inch wingspan and a dog-like face.
The animal researchers in Malaysian were stunned to find that all eight adult male Dayaks caught in a net had swollen breasts that produced milk when gently squeezed.
“They looked like perfectly good males with large testes, but . . . I could see they also had well-developed breasts,” said Charles Francis of the Wildlife Conservation Society whose report appears Thursday in the journal Nature. “I did a double take and made sure I didn’t have my males and females mixed up.”
Scientists said the milk production could have evolved in feeding the young, could be a meaningless byproduct of the bat’s diet or, less likely, could result from man-made pollution.
No other wild male mammals have ever been reported to lactate.
