I just got back from helping a student at the Mexican university UNAM with his thesis research on these gorgeous bats: Leptonycteris or Mexican Long-tounged bats. Leptonycteris or 'Leptos' for short, eat nectar and as you can see they get pollen stuck to their fur (the fuzzy white stuff on his head) which they take from flower to flower pollenating the plants they visit similar to bees. To understand how much energy these little bats need to obtain from their food and how much energy they use nightly we used something called 'the doubly labeled water method' which I will explain in another post so stay tuned. Meanwhile- recall bats are nocturnal so after working all night with a small break and again at 4am-6am I am going to say 'good-night' for now!
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