The Many Faces of Agave Visitors

While my project focuses on nectar-feeding bats and agaves, there are MANY other animals that make use of and benefit from agaves, some of which I have caught on camera!

First off, there are insectivorous (insect-eating) bats that take advantage of all the nocturnal insects flying around the agave flowers and feeding from the nectar. Moths and beetles provide a smorgasboard to these insect-eating bats. I managed to get some infrared videos of one of these visitors in the desert scrub ecosystem of Coahuila. From the still-shot beloow, it looks like this visitor is a Pallid bat (Antrozous pallidus), a fairly common desert bat found in the western U.S. and much of Mexico. These bats are super cool because they typically glean prey off of surfaces, and even ambush large centipedes and scorpions on the ground!

Back in the Field!

This field season is off to a fast start! I’ve been back in Mexico for 4 ½ weeks now and it seems like just a couple weeks! I’ve been quite remiss in keeping up with my blog. This summer has been a lot more jam-packed than last summer, since this year I have funding to support my field work and have been able to rent my own field truck, and therefore get into the field a lot more. This year my work is being supported by a Rufford Foundation Grant, a Phoenix Zoo Conservation Fund Grant, an Idea Wild equipment grant, and the Kate Barlow Award from the Bat Conservation Trust. Without these groups this work would not be possible!

While 4 ½ weeks is a lot to cover, I’d like to share a few highlights so far so you can get an idea of what life has been like during my third field season!