Unusual Pollinators Did You Know?

Betsy McGee Marin Master Gardener 2017 Marin County Fair Mammals

Most of the world’s pollinators can fly, including bats! Their long digits and forearms are encased in a thin membrane, which gives them true flight capabilies. Reptiles Of the more than 1200 bat species, about 30% eat fruit or nectar. Nectar-eang bats have long muzzles Lizards, geckos, and skinks can be pollinators! The Noronha skink and extensible tongues covered in fine bristles. As a found in Brazil drinks from the flowers of the mulungu tree. The bat sips nectar, pollen gets stuck to its fur and is skinks climb inside the flower to drink the nectar, and pollen transferred to the next flower it visits. adheres to their scales.

Bat-pollenated flowers typically open at night, are On the island of Maurius off of southeast Africa, the ornate day large (1 to 3.5 inches), white or pale in color, very gecko dines on pollen from the flowers of the bois boeuf tree. fragrant (with fruit or fermenng odor), and produce Rare pollinators, lizards perform this service on islands lacking copious amounts of nectar. Over 150 plant species, other pollinator species. mostly in tropical and desert climates, depend on bats for reproducon. Mangoes, bananas and guavas are produced from flowers pollenated by bats. The agave plant (which produces tequila) and the saguaro cactus also depend on pollenang bats.

On the island of Madagascar, black and white ruffed lemurs climb the 40-foot traveler’s palm to pry open its tough flower bracts with their fingers. They sck their long snouts and tongues inside the flower to sip nectar, collecng pollen on their muzzles and fur. Birds On the connent of Australia, small honey possums Aer hummingbirds, spiderhunters, sunbirds, honeycreepers and pollenate banksia and eucalyptus flowers. Other small honeyeaters are the most common pollinang birds. They are Australian marsupials also serve as pollinators. aracted to plants with bright red, orange or yellow flowers that produce copious amounts of nectar, as well as pollen that is usually The flowers of the Chinese orchid, Cymbidium large and scky for clinging to feathers. Bird-pollinated flowers have serratum, use both odor and color as an aractant for tubes, funnels or cups and strong supports for perching. the wild mountain mouse, its sole pollinator. The flower petals are a dull green, but the brightly colored Sunbirds (Old World tropics) and spiderhunters (South and Southeast central petal at the base, the labellum, offers a sweet Asia) feed mainly on nectar, although when feeding young, they oen treat for the mice, who pick up pollen as they dine on also eat insects. Sunbird species can take nectar while hovering, but the labellum. usually perch to feed. Their long, curved beaks and brush-pped tubular tongues make these birds parcularly suited to feeding on and While basically carnivorous, the cape grey mongoose pollinang tubular flowers. The tongue is pushed against the top of loves the taste of the nectar served up in open bowls the upper mandible of the bill, then pulled in and out, creang a by the sugar bush plant in its nave South Africa. The pressure difference which allows the nectar to be sucked into the nectar has a cheesy, sour-milk odor that aracts the mouth. mongoose, whose face becomes covered in pollen while sipping the nectar. Honeyeaters resemble hummingbirds in many ways, but are not capable of lengthy hovering flight. They quickly flit from perch to perch, stretching or hanging upside down in order to reach the nectar with their highly developed brush-pped tongue. The flowers of Australia’s nave Grevillea species are pollinated by honeyeaters. Brush-tongued parrots of New Guinea also act as pollinators. Insects Some birds visit flowers to eat small insects aracted to the plant's nectar. In the process of eang the insect, the bird takes some of the While flying insects get most of the aenon as pollen to other plants. pollinators, ny carrion beetles and dung flies also perform this funcon. They’re aracted to the rong odor emied by flowers of plants in the Araceae family, which includes the common calla lily and the western and eastern skunk cabbage.