#dawn bat

these guys have the skrinkiest of grins

Lesser Dawn Bats drink nectar with their long tongues and are very important pollinators for fruits like durian!

Cave Nectar Bat ( Eonycteris spelaea )

Eaten as bushmeat in Cambodia, Myanmar, and the Philippines, this species of bat is only just under a foot long from head to tail.

Cave Nectar Bat (Eonycteris spelaea)

This species has several common names: cave nectar bat, dawn bat, common dawn bat, common nectar bat, and lesser dawn bat.

National Pollinator Week - How to win bats and influence pollinators

When we talk about pollinators, we typically think of the usual bug suspects: bees, butterflies, and even moths get a lot of pollinating press, but there are some mammals willing to work for their nectar too. In fact, over 525 species of plants in the tropics and subtropics rely on bats for their pollination. Bees and butterflies do a great job, but bats are bigger, so they can carry more pollen, and they can fly farther, so they can help gene flow between isolated patches of plant habitat. The dawn bat, easily in the top 100 most adorable animals ever, is one of the only pollinators for Durio zibethinus and Parkia plants in southern Thailand. Dawn bats tend to stick to the same general feeding area, giving the trees they repeatedly visit plenty of chances to reproduce with new genes. If you’re looking to recruit some adorable bats to your orchard, plant some other species that will flower or fruit at different times of the year, so bats have a reason to come back when your main crop is spent.