An early post showed that Cave Nectar Bats (Eonycteris spelaea) prefer male banana flowers that were found at the lower end of the inflorescence branch than the female flowers found at the upper portion LINK.
Less than a week later, the older banana plant (Musa ‘Cavendish”) had begun putting forth only male flowering hands (above). The younger plant bearing the newly inflorescence branch had by then gone through a few hands of female flowers (below).
Observations were made by way of video-recording the two plants from 2200 hours on 5th January to 0200 hours on 6th January 2015. There were a total of seven nectar feedings by Cave Nectar Bats between 2330-0100 hours. Of these, there were four instances of feeding on male flowers and three on female flowers (top).
Obviously the male flowers were still producing enough nectar to attract bats. The female flowers were beginning to produce nectar as the flowering hands moved down the inflorescence bud.
YC Wee
Singapore
January 2015
