M


osquitoes buzz by my head, and my skin


itches. But I don’t slap at the bugs or move at all. What I’m waiting for is worth a few bites. I’m in a jungle to see a flower, the sea bean,


“call” a bat. T is may seem like an odd claim since flowers don’t make noise. Yet biologist Ralph Simon argues that some flowers use sound to attract bats. It’s one way that flowers get bats to come drink their nectar. His theory thrills me. I’m a photographer


and bat expert. I use my photos to learn about bats and to teach others about them. Simon and I have teamed up to see how flowers and bats are built to find each other in the dark. We soon see this in action. Darkness falls


and a sea bean bud begins to open. First, a small green petal curls upward like a cupped leaf. T en two pale yellow petals open to the side like wings. I smell garlic. Suddenly, a bat flies by me. It shoves its


nose into the flower, then flies off . It happens so fast, we don’t get a chance to document the visit. So it’s time to catch some bats.


Inside a Flower


The pistil


collects pollen to make seeds.


The anther makes pollen.


The petals attract pollinators.


18 NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC EXTREME EXPLORER


The long stalk of the stamen holds up an anther.


Bat Catcher Earlier, we’d hung a net between two trees. I see four nectar-drinking bats struggling in its threads. T ey’re like the bats that we had seen visiting the sea bean. T ey aren’t hurt, but they can’t escape. I put on a leather glove. T ese bats may lap


up nectar with long tongues, but they defend themselves with sharp little teeth! I carefully untangle the bats and slip each one into a soſt cloth bag. I take the bats to a photo studio we’ve built


nearby. T e studio looks like a jungle. It’s dark, and sea beans hang from metal stands. I’ve already set up my digital camera and aimed it at the flowers. I free the bats in the studio. Luckily, these


bats are hungry. Soon, they’re flitting from sea bean to sea bean. Now, I’ll be able to use my camera to document step-by-step everything that happens so quickly in the wild. Click, click, click. Over several nights, I take


as many as 10,000 photos of the flowers and the bats interacting. What I see is amazing.


Discover the main parts a fl ower uses for pollination.


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