Powerhouse Pollinators

When people think of pollinators, bees usually come to mind, but bees have a nocturnal counterpart that is just as important.

Spectacled Flying-foxes, a fruit bat native to the Wet Tropics, are like the bees of the rainforest. They help to keep our World Heritage rainforests resilient and diverse.

Pollination Powerhouses

Bees are great for pollinating flowers and small cropping areas but flying foxes do the long-distance work in forests. Like bees, flying foxes move pollen from one tree to another while feeding. As they lap up nectar from blossoms, grains of pollen stick to their fur and are carried to the next tree that they visit. Some native forest trees rely heavily on flying-foxes for this ecosystem service, especially those that flower at night when insect pollinators are less active such as hardwood eucalypts.

Super-sized Seed Couriers

Spectacled Flying-foxes provide an additional service beyond pollination. While bees mainly help flowers to reproduce locally, flying-foxes also act as long-distance seed couriers. By eating rainforest fruits and travelling up to 20–40km in a night, they spread seeds far from the parent tree, helping new forests grow and connecting isolated patches of rainforest.

Climate Resilience

Bees are critical for crop pollination, supporting our food security. Flying-foxes do something just as important for rainforests — they help ecosystems to adapt to climate change. By moving seeds and pollen across large areas, they boost genetic diversity and resilience, giving forests a better chance of surviving as the climate changes.

Social Gardeners

Both bees and flying foxes are social creatures. Bees work together in hives, while flying foxes live in noisy roosts, sharing knowledge about feeding sites and roosting locations. This social behaviour ensures that whole colonies contribute to rainforest regeneration, just like whole bee colonies support flowering plants.