Top 10 Evolutionary Tricks for Pollinators

The Pollination Honeypot

A honeybee gathers nectar from a flower at a farm in the western Austrian village of Seefeld on May 14, 2013.

Gifts of flowers can help humans in matters of the birds and the bees. However, flowers themselves often need reproductive help from birds and bees, not to mention bats, moths, lizards and primates.

Honeybees hog the spotlight of pollination fame, but many other species also help flowers find true love, or at least a few grains of pollen. These animals move pollen from one flower to another, fertilizing them, which allows them to form seeds.

Sugary Nectar

Tiny hummingbirds maintain their manic lifestyles by feeding on the sugary nectar within flowers. The bee hummingbird holds the record as the smallest living bird, at only 5-6 centimeters (2-2.5 inches). The birds burn energy quickly as they beat their wings up to 70 times per second in normal flight.

Plants attract hummingbirds using bright orange and red flowers with little odor. Hummingbird-pollinated flowers ooze extremely sugary nectar -- averaging 26 percent sugar, double the amount of a soft drink -- according to the Smithsonian National Zoo. Some flowers evolved to force a hungry hummingbird to brush its head on the pollen-laden stamens, a part of the flower. This turns the bird's head into a pollen postal service as the bird flits from flower to flower.

Reach for the Gold

In 1862, Charles Darwin predicted the existence of one of the most extreme pollinators after he received an orchid (Angraecum sesquipedale) with a foot-long tube leading to its nectar depository. Darwin predicted that an insect with an extremely long feeding structure, or proboscis, would eventually be discovered in the orchid's homeland of Madagascar.

In 1903, naturalists found Morgan's sphinx moth (Xanthopan morgani), a Madagascan moth with a proboscis that is just over 30 centimeters (one foot) long. Unfortunately, Darwin didn't survive to see the moth that fit his theory. He passed away two decades before the moth fluttered into a collector's clutches.

Fruity Flowers

Tequila exists thanks to bats' pollination. The nocturnal aviators help fertilize the agave plant, the source of tequila. Bats also pollinate more than 300 species of fruit, including mangoes, bananas and guavas, according to the U.S. Forest Service.

Some bats have evolved long tongues, similar to moths' proboscises, and the ability to hover, like hummingbirds. Bats outdo the birds and bugs by using their echolocation ability to find certain types of flowers, according to research in the Journal of Experimental Biology. Bat-pollinated flowers tend to be large, pale-colored and have a strong aroma of fermenting fruit.

Read more at Discovery News