Australia's smallest flying foxes, weighing no more than 600 grams, are flying hundreds of kilometres to feed on Queensland's finest flowering plants.
The life of a little red flying fox has been explored as part of a joint Queensland government and CSIRO monitoring program.
Initial results from the 13 tagged flying foxes revealed each of the flying mammals had travelled hundreds of kilometres from where they were first tagged at the tracking program's base in Charters Towers in north Queensland.
Last December, up to 200,000 flying foxes, most of which were little reds, camped in trees around Charters Towers, causing residents to rally against the roosts and local council to close parks.
Environment Minister Leeanne Enoch said researchers believed the flying foxes had inundated the north Queensland town because of a flowering event where melaleuca and bloodwood trees produced sweet nectar.
"This research program is intended to improve management of little red flying fox roosts by providing local governments with information and knowledge they need to minimise levels of disturbance these animals regularly cause to communities across Queensland," she said.
Ms Enoch said the next step for the project was to enlist the help of rangers, local government, the Queensland Herbarium and other partners to help increase understanding of what drives the animals' behaviour.
"The Department of Environment and Science is inviting key partners to monitor little red flying foxes across much of north and central Queensland to help collect information on where and when they go and why they have the way they do," she said.
The collected information will be used in the CSIRO research program, led by flying fox expert Dr David Westcott.
Dr Westcott said in the satellite tracking study conducted over the past year, 13 little reds were tracked from Charters Towers, up to 800 kilometres north to Cape York Peninsula, and more than 650 kilometres south to Carnarvon Gorge.
"It's likely to be the search for native flowering plants, which are their food source, which caused them to leave Charters Towers and travel so widely," he said.
