Wildlife
Pollinators carry pollen from plant to plant and, often unwittingly, play a crucial role in plant reproduction. Bees are the most familiar pollinators, but plants attract thousands of different types of animals - using all sorts of alluring strategies: colour, scent, structure - to carry out this ecosystem role. Some of the larger active species include fruit bats, hummingbirds and even lemurs. Without pollinators millions of human beings would starve, as most of our crops depend on them.
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Foraging honeybees
Forager honeybees visit 2000 flowers a day to collect pollen and nectar.
Forager honeybees visit 2000 flowers a day to collect pollen and nectar.
Pussy willow
Springtime catkins attract early springtime pollinators.
Springtime catkins attract early springtime pollinators.
Wasp flowers
Some orchids mimic female wasps to con male bees into pollinating them.
Some orchids mimic female wasps to con male bees into pollinating them.
Bees and balsam
Himalayan balsam uses small economically-produced flowers to attracts bees.
Himalayan balsam uses small economically-produced flowers to attracts bees.
Drink through a straw
Hummingbird hawk moth are perfect matches for honeysuckle.
Hummingbird hawk moth are perfect matches for honeysuckle.
A pollinator is the biotic agent (vector) that moves pollen from the male anthers of a flower to the female stigma of a flower to accomplish fertilization or syngamy of the female gamete in the ovule of the flower by the male gamete from the pollen grain. Though the terms are sometimes confused, a pollinator is different from a pollenizer, which is a plant that is a source of pollen for the pollination process.
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Common blossom bat
Crowned lemur
Golden langur
Pied tamarin
Dormouse
Andean hillstar
Buff-tailed bumblebee
Bumblebees
European honey bee
Mason bees
Burnet moth
Hummingbird hawk-moth
Large blue butterfly
Swallowtail