Carnivorous plant’s sound echoes draw bats in

by Hanae Armitage

There is a plant in Borneo that literally has a built-in bat signal.

Nepenthes hemslayana is a Paleotropic carnivorous pitcher plant that provides a safe place for bats to roost; it’s cool and free of parasites and other bats. The bat, in turn, helps the plant by providing extra nitrogen through its feces. But how do the bats find the plant in the first place?

According to a new study, published online today in Current Biology, N. hemslayana’s tubalike shape features a long, reflective structure that extends back into the cylinder of the plant. As the bats search for a place to roost, the structure acts as an acoustic flag, bouncing back the ultrasonic calls the bats emit to navigate (a process known as echolocation) and waving the bats down to a comfortable home…

(read more: Science News/AAAS)

photograph by Ch´ien C. Lee/wildborneo.com.my