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![]() 19 a flower specialist DHJanzen100681.jpg high resolution
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Here a Glossophaga soricina bat - which gets much of its food from flower nectar and pollen - extends its tongue. The long tongue can not only reach far into a flower, but it is even furry on the tip to aid in sopping up nectar rapidly. Incidentally, many species of tropical bats are not the insectivores that you know our extra-tropical bats to be, but rather, eat nectar, pollen, fruit, birds, frogs, blood, and even fish (though it has been recently discovered that a south European bat preys on nocturnally migrating birds along the northern shores of the Mediterranean). |
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