[Animals] the call of the flower

[-𝓣𝓐𝓚𝓘]

Some tropical flowers reflect sound so that nectar-seeking bats find them more easily.

Excerpt from the March issue of National Geographic magazine in Spanish.
Photographs of Merlin D. Tuttle

The ingenuity of nature knows no limits. Consider the case of the nectar-drinking bat and the night-blooming plant, whose lives intertwine in the lowland jungles of Central America.
Glossophaga commissarisi, a tiny, winged mammal with a body no larger than a thumb, flutters among Mucuna holtonii flowers, lapping up nectar in a similar way to hummingbirds and bees. In return, it pollinates the plant. During the day, the flowers can show off their richness with brilliant colors like scarlet and fuchsia, but at night, when even the brightest hues pale before the silvery moonlight, Mucuna flowers resort to structures acoustic to attract the attention of bats seeking nectar.
At La Selva Biological Station in northern Costa Rica, a vigorous ancient Mucuna wove a roof of leaves over a jungle clearing, letting dozens of flowers dangle from long, green stems.
At sunset, the plant's cocoons get ready for the bats. First, the topmost green petal covering a bud slowly opens vertically to rise above the flower like a gleaming beacon. Beneath the headlamp-petal, two small lateral petals unfold to reveal an opening in the sheath.
Bats use high frequency sound as a tool. With their vocal cords they emit quick, small sonic bursts through their nostrils or snouts, shaping airwaves and allowing them to interpret the changing patterns that bounce back to their sensitive ears. The information they receive is processed rapidly and continuously, allowing them to change their course mid-flight as they sprint after a mosquito or soar through flowering trees.
Most bats feed on insects; they often use powerful long-range calls produced by the upward movement of their wings. Nectar-eating bats send out soft but sophisticated calls, known to scientists as frequency modulated. These calls trade distance for details. They are most effective at a range of four meters, sending back precise information about target size, shape, position, texture, angle, depth, and other qualities that only nectivore bats can interpret.

Merlin Tuttle cut this flower to document how the bat's tongue sucks up nectar while the flower's anthers fill its forehead with pollen.

no romance

But this is not a love story. The force that moves the bat-flower alliance is not romance but the main objective of life: survival and reproduction.
Exchanging nectar for pollination is a delicate transaction that presents a dilemma for plants. Night-bloomers do well to be thrifty with their nectar, because well-fed bats will visit fewer flowers, but if a plant is too stingy, the bat will seek service elsewhere. Over the millennia, bat-pollinated plants have developed an effective solution: They sidestep the problem of nectar quantity (and quality) by maximizing the bat's foraging efficiency.
Thus, nocturnal flowering plants display their richness in positions exposed to flight so that bats can easily find them, drink from them and are protected from arboreal predators such as snakes or possums. They spice up the scent of their flowers with sulfur compounds: irresistible long-distance cues for nectivorous bats. Mucuna and other plants have gone one step further: they have shaped their flowers to attract the ear of bats.

https://www.ngenespanol.com/naturaleza/llamado-flor/