Spring is here and if you look around, you'll see lots of flowers -- and hopefully, lots of bees, too. Those bees are hard at work collecting nectar and pollen to feed their growing hive of sisters. At the same time, they're pollinating flowers, ensuring another generation of plants, too. Pollination is one of the most essential biological activities in nature. Ninety percent of all flowering plants require an animal pollinator to successfully reproduce -- and most of the food plants that humans and animals rely on are flowering plants. Pollination is a mutually beneficial relationship for both the plant and the pollinator. A wide variety of animals -- primarily insects, but also birds and bats -- pollinate plants. The video below the jump was inspired by the honeybee and is a sneak-peak at pollination, and also a sneak-peak at a new film, Wings of Life, about pollination:
To really see the details, I encourage you to watch this embedded film full-screen.
What did you think of that amazing aerial barrel-roll that the hummingbird did at 3:52? Did you see it flying upside down? And did you see the baby bat clinging to mama at 5:55? (I'll leave it as an exercise for my mystery birders to identify all the hummingbird species, as well as all the other species in this film.)
The cinematographer, Louie Schwartzberg, can be found on twitter @LouieFilms, Facebook and the web.
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email: grrlscientist@gmail.com
twitter: @GrrlScientist
