In Costa Rica, fruit-eating Dermanura phaeotis provide pollinating services for the palm Calyptrogyne ghiebreghtiana. Bats eat the male and female corollas and by doing so they transfer the pollen from male flowers to female flowers. True nectar-feeding bats, such as Glossophaga commissarisi are inappropriate pollinators for this palm, since they do not land on inflorescences but rather hover in front of them; thereby not touching the pollen or stigma.
In the neotropics, flowers of the vine Mucuna holtoni are pollinated by nectar-feeding bats such as Glossophaga commissarisi. For this, bats land on the flower, stick their snout into a central part of the flowers and then take up the sugar reward. In the meantime, the flower is depositing pollen on the dorsal part of the tail membrane, a region that is hard to reach for the bat; an ideal place to deposit pollen! The two pictures shows an inflorescence from below and the side, one of the flowers is ready to get pollinated (central one).
Plants of the Neotropical genus Piper are key species for the regeneration of forests. Short-tailed fruit bats (genus Carollia) are the main dispersers of seeds and thus ecosystem services provided by these bats are crucial for the natural succession of forests or logged areas.
Nectar-feeding bats pollinate hundreds and thousands of plants in tropical and subtropical areas. In Costa Rica, Glossophaga commissarisi visits flowers of the bromeliad plant Werauhia by hovering in front of them.
Insect-feeding bats are consuming vast quantities of insects each night. The videos show Myotis albescens hunting for a mealworm that it was trained to pick from a line.