The balsa tree bursts into bloom at sunset during Panama’s dry season, feeding a kaleidoscope of species.
A kinkajou's pollen-dusted cheek tells of a late-night nectar binge in an Ochroma, or balsa, tree.
Two stingless bees drowned in a sugary pool; the woolly opossum drinks around them. On one tree, 50 to 60 flowers open nightly, each pumping out almost an ounce of nectar.
A praying mantis on high alert waits for insects drawn through the night to collect Ochroma blossom pollen. Navigation lights glow in the background on the Panama Canal.
White-faced capuchins, like this mother and baby, arrive daily at their favorite balsa trees just before nightfall.
Africanized honeybees swarm toward an Ochroma flower just after sunset. The bees seek pollen; if they land by mistake in a blossom's pool of nectar, they will probably drown. Their ability to see in slightly lower light than native stingless bees gives the honeybees a competitive advantage at night. Earlier in the day the natives often block access to flowers.
A greater spear-nosed bat hovers at a blossom. Bats were long considered the primary pollinators of Ochroma, but recent research suggests arboreal mammals do most of the work.
An olingo, smaller cousin of the kinkajou (both are rain forest mammals related to raccoons), grasps a tattered flower. Kinkajous often shoo their kin away, but the quicker olingos often dart around in the trees, just out of reach, until flowers produce another batch of nectar.
A hummingbird incubates her eggs in a nest built partly with fibers of the Ochroma fruit, which grows after pollinated flowers wither.
 In pale moonlight near dawn, a tiny gecko looking for bugs to eat perches on a flower near the end of its one-night stand. |
發表於 2011-5-3 08:52 AM
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