Jerry Dubowe, age 11, of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, for his question:

Is the flying fox a mammal?

Swoosh: Is it a Flying Saucer, Count Dracula or a Big Black Kite with a five foot wingspread? Calm down, it's just a flying fox on his way to a late supper in the nearest orchard. Behind him comes a squadron of his friends and relatives, flapping their leathery wings against the starry sky. They are more scared of you than you should be of them.

Of the 1,000 of, so bat species, about 60 are called flying foxes. Though they have foxy faces and bodies covered with foxy fur, they are gen¬uine bats and the bats, of course, are genuine mammals. They also are the only mammals that fly on flappable wings. Their wings are leathery shin stretched from their sides, over their legs and the elongated bones of their arms and fingers. The thumb joint on each wing extends to form a handy claw.

The flying foxes live in India, the peninsulas and islands around southeast Asia, the coastal regions of Australia and on a few islands in the Indian Ocean. Though classed as fruit eating bats, they eat a lot of flowers and many like to gorge themselves on delicate sprays of fragrant mimosa. Where tropical trees abound, hundreds or thousands of them live in colonies.

All of them are large bats. The giant has a body a foot long and wings that can be spread five feet wide. Like most flying foxes, he wears foxy red fur on his head and body. His leathery wings are black. His foxy face has a long pointed nose, lame bright eyes and pointed ears. Around his neck is a shaggy ruff of orange red fur.

From dawn until dusk, the colony roosts in a drove of tall trees, preferably above a swamp. There they hang upside down by one or both back feet, with wings folded around their bodies. Soon after sunset, the sleeping bats begin to stir. Wings unfold and squadrons take off for the nearest food supply.

Sometimes, like thieves in the night, they descend on orchards and dine on cultivated apples, plums and pears. They ignore bananas and other produce that usually is picked and sent to market in the unripe stage. Flying foxes select only fully ripe fruit. And naturalists say that they prefer the tangy taste of wild fruits. When possible, they dine on wild figs, paw paws, various berries and assorted blossoms.

Since time began, flying foxes have been hunted as human food. It is said that their meat is tender and has a delicate flavor somewhere between chicken and rabbit. Many ingenious ways have been invented to catch them. For example, the Australian Aborigines light smudge pots under their roosts. When the smoke dazes the dozing bats, they are bashed down with boomerangs.