Bats as Pollinators

Written By: Aimee Turcotte
Zoo Educator

Did you know that bats are pollinators? There are approximately 50 species of bats that pollinate plants. Bats visit flowers that are open at night in search of copious diluted nectar for their energy-rich diet. Occasionally, bats will feed on insects in the flowers or the flower parts of plants such as banana, sausage tree, and calabash. Some bats, like the greater long nosed bat, are nectarivorous, meaning their main source of food is sugary nectar. The fermenting or fruit-like odor of flowering plants attracts bats to large pale or white bell-shaped flowers with nectar. When a bat is collecting nectar, pollen often gets on the bat’s body and is transferred from one flower to another. This movement of pollen is pollination, aka chiropterophily for bats. The relationship between the bat and flowering native or introduced plants is mutualistic since the bats benefit from drinking nectar and the plants benefit from pollen distribution.

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Bats have many adaptations that help them survive. Some bats have evolved to have long tongues that can reach the nectar at the bottom of nocturnal flowers. For instance, the tube-lipped nectar bat of Ecuador has a tongue that is more than one and a half times the length of its body! Additionally, bats can fly farther than some other pollinators like butterflies, which allows them to pollinate plants over a wide range of habitat. The spear-nosed bats in Brazil can carry pollen as far as 11 miles.

Bats pollinate approximately 550 species of flowering plants worldwide, including in desert and tropical climates. Therefore, you can say “thanks” to the bats for providing us with fruits to eat like mango by pollinating plants. These bats have socioeconomic value, especially in the agricultural field. For example, in Indonesia, bats pollinate the plant Durio zibethinus, which has edible durian fruit. Durian fruit is valued at ≈$ 117/ha during its fruit-bearing period, which would not be possible without the ecosystem services that bats provide. Moreover, bats eat pests that cause crop damage, contributing over $3 billion dollars annually towards U.S. agriculture. If pollinator bat populations were to decline, then the number of flowering plant populations will most likely decrease due to these plants relying on pollination by bats to survive.

Unfortunately, there are coincidences where bats lack the chance to feed on and pollinate flowering plants. The lesser long-nosed bat from Mexico is known for pollinating the flowers of agave plants. However, before agave plants grow flowers, they are harvested by farmers, resulting in the reproduction of these plants through cloning. Genetic diversity is lost, and more plants are susceptible to disease due to cloning. Furthermore, bats face threats to their survival such as habitat loss, climate change, and a fungal infection called white-nose syndrome. Bats afflicted with white-nose syndrome before the spring typically die from the disease while in hibernation. This syndrome has caused some species of bats to decline by 90%, resulting in less bats pollinating flowers during the spring.

Most pollinating bats are found in Southeast Asia, Africa, and the Pacific Islands. However, the Mexican long-tongued bat and lesser long-nosed bat are vulnerable migrating bats that feed on nectar from flowering plants in the spring when traveling from Mexico to Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas.

What can you do to help bats? Wooden bat houses can be placed in backyards to provide shelter for migrating flower-visiting bats. Furthermore, when exploring parks, people should stay out of caves where bats hibernate to avoid disturbing their habitat. Lastly, educating people about bats, starting at a young age, can spread awareness about the importance of these animals and why it is necessary to protect them.