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 22 DHJanzen101037.jpg high resolution
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| Not only bees pollinate (and/or visit) flowers. This wild-caught Heliconius butterfly has been visiting flowers early in the morning for floral nectar, but also collecting pollen from those flowers onto its tubular tongue (coiled up in this photograph). The butterfly then regurgitates nectar onto this pollen mass, which in turn leaches amino acids from the pollen (the pollen grains just might be beginning to germinate as well). This enriched nectar is then sucked/slurped back up by the butterfly. In this context, the butterfly is a visitor and pollen predator. However, it is also likely that in the process of going from flower to flower while harvesting pollen with its tongue, it is also pollinating at least some of the species of flowers that it visits. | ||
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