FURRY POLLINATORS
Many mammals also make plant pollination possible
SLOW LORIS
A slow loris is a small mammal weighing around 1.2 kilograms that can be found on the Indonesian island of Java. These nocturnal tree climbers spend their time moving through the thick vegetation of Java’s tropical rainforest on the hunt for fruit and tree sap, as well as insects, lizards and even other small mammals. On its nightly travels, a slow loris passively pollinates coffee plants and eats any harmful insect larvae that damage the crop plants.
LEMURS
In Madagascar, traveller’s palm trees (Ravenala madagascariensis) are mainly pollinated by the world’s largest pollinator, the black-and-white ruffed lemur (Varecia variegata). Thanks to their nimble and dexterous hands, these lemurs are able to prise open the tough bract (protective layer) of the tree’s flower. While burrowing into the opened flowers to lap up sugary nectar, the face and snout of the lemurs get covered in pollen. After visiting several trees, the successfully pollinated plants will then produce nutritious fruit, which the lemurs will also eat.
HONEY POSSUM
As well as being the world’s smallest marsupial, the honey possum is also one of the smallest mammal pollinators around. Like many insect pollinators, honey possums enjoy the taste of nectar and pollen. Despite lacking wings to fly from flower to flower, these determined creatures climb each flower on the hunt for food, deploying their long bristle tongues to scoop out nectar.
BATS
Plant pollination by bats – also known as chiropterophily – is one of the most common forms of pollination in many tropical and desert biomes, which have night-blooming flowers. Like hummingbirds, bats have evolved long slender tongues to reach the nectar in large bell-shaped plants. For example, the Ecuadorian tube-lipped nectar bat (Anoura fistulata) has a tongue that’s more than one-and-a-half times the length of its body to reach nectar. In Mexico, the lesser long-nosed bat (Leptonycteris yerbabuenae) is responsible for pollinating agave plants, used to make tequila.