In my photo studio, I see bats fl y to sea bean fl owers to fi nd nectar.


Caught in the Act Click, click, click. Over several nights, I take as many as 10,000 photos of the flowers and the bats interacting. T e photos show the flowers blooming and the bats zooming in. Each time, a bat grabs a flower. It tucks its tail and then swings up its feet to hold on. As a bat drinks nectar, long, thin stalks


called stamens spring out of the flower near the bat’s back end. An anther tops each stamen. Each anther is covered in a sticky dust called pollen. T e movement of the stamens, or the flower’s male parts, flings pollen onto the bat’s back end. T en the bat flies to another sea bean


for more nectar. Some pollen from the first flower rubs off onto the second flower’s pistil, or female part. T e bat carries pollen from flower to flower, pollinating them. Now, the flowers can make seeds and new plants. So far, the photos show why the flowers


attract bats. T e plants do it to reproduce and survive. We still want to investigate how flowers can call bats.


Pollen from a bell fl ower dusts the throat of a bat.


JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2015 11


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24