Which animals pollinate

This can be done by:. Contact us to find out how we can help your ag operation with our custom loan packages. Power of Top 10 Pollinators in Agriculture. Explore the important role played by pollinators in agriculture. Major agricultural pollinators include: Wild honey bees. Native honey bees are the most commonly known pollinator. Recent problems with colony collapse and bee pests have put the wild honey bee population in danger, leading to many initiatives to aid honey bee health.

According to a Natural Resources Conservation Service NRCS publication, certain crops—such as blueberries, apples, and cherries—are 90 percent dependent upon honey bee pollination. Managed bees. Another group of important pollinating flies are bee flies Bombylius species.

If you look at them quickly you might think that they are bees, but they are only imitators. Although they look like bees, their larvae actually feed on bee larvae. Bee flies have very long proboscises to pollinate flowers that have narrow, deep tubes. Other flies that pollinate are some male Bactrocera fruit flies and even adult mosquitos.

They like pale and dull flowers with lots of pollen. Carrion flies pollinate flowers that have a fetid odour, similar to rotting meat, dung, humus, or blood. These flowers are often also purple or red to seem even more like meat.

Some of the carrion flies get tricked into laying their eggs on these flowers; their larvae starve due to lack of carrion. Different from bees, many wasps catch prey to feed their larvae instead of pollen, which is why they have stingers. Wasps need a lot of energy like bees. Wasps from Masarinae , a subfamily of Vespidae , are called pollen wasps because they gather pollen to feed their larvae. Figs are fruit that depend on tiny fig wasps to pollinate them. Fig flowers lie inside of immature fruit so the wasps need to be small to fit into a tiny hole to lay their eggs and pollinate.

Fig wasps pollinate almost 1, different species of figs. Butterflies are not built for pollination, with their slender legs and elevated bodies, but they do transport some pollen as they flit from flower to flower in search of nectar. Butterflies like flowers that contain a lot of nectar. They have good vision and are attracted to flowers that are brightly colored — such as red, orange, and yellow.

As it laps up nectar, sticky pollen attaches to its fur. Later, the pollen may rub off when it visits another flower. Bats pollinate many plants, from cactuses to bananas, guavas, and mangoes.

Flies are important pollinators, and hoverflies do more pollinating than any other kind of fly. As they crawl around on a flower feeding on nectar, tiny hairs on their bodies pick up pollen and carry it to the next flowers they visit. These furry mammals go out at night to find fruit to eat and nectar to lap up. Here, one has just visited a night-blooming balsa flower.

The tiny lizard lives on only a few small islands in the Indian Ocean. Most geckos eat insects. But on islands where insects are scarce, geckos also eat nectar and fruit.

As the bird drinks, grains of pollen stick to its bill. Hummingbirds need a lot of sweet nectar to give them energy for flying. That means they visit many flowers, and they can move a lot of pollen as they travel. This fuzzy elephant hawk moth , shown very close up, is dusted with tiny pollen grains. Instead, the flower is giving off a tricky odor that smells like a female wasp.

And these male wasps are fooled by it! When the wasps move in close to investigate, they pick up pollen that they may later carry to another orchid. Tuis are part of a family of birds called honeyeaters.

That long proboscis is for sipping nectar, and its body and legs are sure to carry some pollen to the next flower stop. Scientists still have a lot of questions about which animals are just visiting flowers and which are doing the important work of pollination. It can be a sticky situation! This proud, puffed-up male turkey is trying to attract the attention of a female.

Sturgeons are an ancient group of fishes that have been swimming the Earth for over million years. Bees land on these various plants and collect pollen and nectar, which they carry back to their hives as food for the colony. As they travel from plant to plant, bees deposit pollen on the female reproductive organs of new plants.

This transfer of pollen allows for fertilization. Pollination is perhaps the most important function of bees, particularly honey bees. This article takes a closer look at which specific crops are pollinated by honey bees.

The importance of honey bee pollination varies per crop and can be classified as one of the following: essential, great, modest, and little. Honey bee pollination is considered essential for eight crops: kiwifruit, passion fruit, rowanberry, watermelon, squash includes pumpkin, gourd, and zucchini , macadamia nut, and brazil nut. These plants grow across a wide variety of agricultural climates, from temperate to tropical. Kiwifruit is most successfully pollinated via saturation pollination.

This method is when agricultural workers put about 8 hives for every 2.