Bats use carnivorous plants as a toilet

A new study has revealed a strange mutual relationship between bats and a carnivorous plant on Borneo island in Southeast Asia.

A species of bat and carnivorous plants on Borneo island enjoy an unusual relationship, but in a mutually beneficial way.

Bats often reside in trees and defecate always into the bait trap of the tree, also known as a vase, which contributes to feeding the plant.

The finding, published in the latest issue of Royal Society Biology Letters , is the second rare case of a link between a carnivorous plant and a mammal . The first case was published in 2009, when scientists witnessed a species of rat family dropping waste into another pitcher plant, also belonging to another carnivorous plant.

Warm plants and bats

Although bats and carnivores eat insects, they do not compete with each other and live in harmony.

' Bats don't eat insects that are rotting inside the bait trap of carnivorous plants. Even if they wanted to, they could not do that because the insect container section was usually elongated, causing the bat to become stuck if there was a dark intention , 'said University of Brunei Darussalam research team leader Ulmar Grafe. .

His team mounted signal generators on the backs of gray nose bats in swamp forests in Brunei Darussalam. When tracking the bats above, the researchers found that many of them chose to rest and sleep at the reservoir of Nepenthes rafflesiana carnivorous plant, simply called a pitcher plant.

Results of chemical analysis of the plant showed that about 33.8% of its nutrients come from faeces and bat waste water.

After further investigation, the team of experts discovered that this warmed plant did not spend much effort to catch the same plants as other carnivorous plants. The evidence is that it secretes a small amount of aromatic compounds to attract germs, and produces less digestive juices.

Instead, the pitcher plant spends all its strength to invite bats to settle on the body, by developing long, narrow containers to create a cozy shelter for bats.

" In mother-and-child bats, the mother will give birth to babies in the bottle ," Mr. Grafe said, explaining that most of the pitchers of the pitcher plants have enough room to hold two bats at the same time.

Matthew Struebig, a University of Kent researcher, once spent time in Brunei and witnessed the mother and baby bat hiding in the pitcher of the pitcher tree . According to him, most experts said that the fact that the bat selects the cover tree to make the overnight place is only a temporary arrangement.

However, in this case, it seems that the carnivorous plant is actually the bat's true home, not as a ' satellite ' refuge as in other cases.