ArticleScience advances2015
Nectar uptake in bats using a pumping-tongue mechanism.
Article in Science advances, 2015. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 10 papers.
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Who cites it
10 citing papers in PubMed, 41 citations in OpenAlex.
- Sex-Specific Responses to Social Calls Shape Foraging Decisions in a Nectar-Feeding Bat.Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences · 2026Article
- Bat Tongues and Foraging: Linking Morphology to Hunting Strategies.Integrative zoology · 2026Article
- Convergent mechanisms, divergent strategies: a comparison of nectar intake between a generalist and a specialist bat species.The Journal of experimental biology · 2026Article
- Feeding efficiency of two coexisting nectarivorous bat species (Phyllostomidae: Glossophaginae) at flowers of two key-resource plants.PloS one · 2024Article
- Cetacean tongue mobility and function: A comparative review.Journal of anatomy · 2023Review
- Honey bees switch mechanisms to drink deep nectar efficiently.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2023Article
- Endangered Nectar-Feeding Bat Detected by Environmental DNA on Flowers.Animals : an open access journal from MDPI · 2022Article
- The Tongue in Three Species of Lemurs: Flower and Nectar Feeding Adaptations.Animals : an open access journal from MDPI · 2021Article
- Sucking or lapping: facultative feeding mechanisms in honeybees (Biology letters · 2020Article
- Bromeliads going batty: pollinator partitioning among sympatric chiropterophilous Bromeliaceae.AoB PLANTS · 2019Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
3 authors at 2 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Many insects use nectar as their principal diet and have mouthparts specialized in nectarivory, whereas most nectar-feeding vertebrates are opportunistic users of floral resources and only a few species show distinct morphological specializations. Specialized nectar-feeding bats extract nectar from flowers using elongated tongues that correspond to two vastly different morphologies: Most species have tongues with hair-like papillae, whereas one group has almost hairless tongues that show distinct lateral grooves. Recent molecular data indicate a convergent evolution of groove- and hair-tongued bat clades into the nectar-feeding niche. Using high-speed video recordings on experimental feeders, we show distinctly divergent nectar-feeding behavior in clades. Grooved tongues are held in contact with nectar for the entire duration of visit as nectar is pumped into the mouths of hovering bats, whereas hairy tongues are used in conventional sinusoidal lapping movements. Bats with grooved tongues use a specific fluid uptake mechanism not known from any other mammal. Nectar rises in semiopen lateral grooves, probably driven by a combination of tongue deformation and capillary action. Extraction efficiency declined for both tongue types with a similar slope toward deeper nectar levels. Our results highlight a novel drinking mechanism in mammals and raise further questions on fluid mechanics and ecological niche partitioning.
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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.