Unlike other bats, flying foxes do not live in caves nor do they have echolocation, but they have highly developed senses of sight and hearing. They are great frugivores. They live in highly hierarchical colonies of up to a thousand individuals, where the dominant males occupy the best positions, located in the upper areas of a large tree. They spend the day sleeping, hanging upside down with their wings folded around their body. Sometimes they fan themselves to maintain an adequate body temperature.

At dusk, they leave the tree to look for fruit to feed on, and later return to the roost to digest the food and go back to sleep. They ingest the juice of the fruit, discarding the pulp and seeds. They are therefore important seed dispersers. Mating takes place between the months of July and October, and the young are usually born between February and May. The females move away from the group to give birth, and will hide their young between their wings for the first 5 months of life. At this age, they will separate from the mother's side and begin to look for food on their own. The young become sexually mature at one and a half years of age.