{"id":4137,"date":"2025-10-24T18:05:02","date_gmt":"2025-10-24T23:05:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/opuntiads.com\/oblog\/?p=4137"},"modified":"2025-10-24T18:05:02","modified_gmt":"2025-10-24T23:05:02","slug":"bats-distribute-seeds-of-a-cactus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/opuntiads.com\/oblog\/bats-distribute-seeds-of-a-cactus\/","title":{"rendered":"Bats Distribute Seeds of a Cactus?"},"content":{"rendered":"

(Photograph = R. juengeri with greenish fruit)<\/p>\n

Introduction<\/h2>\n

A new species of Rhipsalis<\/em>\u2014R. juengeri<\/em>\u2014was described from the Atlantic Rainforest in eastern Brazil. It forms more than three-meter curtains that hang from the canopy. At the tips of the thin, pendant shoots it bears small, greenish berries that, unusually for a cactus, are strongly scented with a black-currant\u2013like aroma. The scent, rather than bright color, is the plant\u2019s main signal.<\/p>\n

The Details<\/h3>\n

Because the fruits are dull green to light beige\u2014not the red or white that typically attract birds\u2014their strong, berry-like odor likely targets animals that rely more on smell than on color. The leading candidate is a bat. Bats are active at night, they have keen olfaction, and they commonly feed on soft fruits in the forest canopy.<\/p>\n

Several fruit traits fit that idea. The berries develop and are presented at the very tips of long, hanging shoots, where a flying mammal could easily pluck them. Ripe fruits can persist on the plant for weeks to months and remain aromatic the whole time, increasing the chance that a nocturnal frugivore finds them. Each fruit carries only a few seeds, which is typical of animal-dispersed plants that \u201cpackage\u201d seeds in small, frequent servings rather than in large, colorful crops meant for birds.<\/p>\n

This is still a hypothesis, but it is a reasonable one: a scented, canopy-hung fruit could feed bats, and in return the bats could deposit seeds on branches or trunk surfaces\u2014exactly where an epiphytic cactus needs to start life.<\/p>\n

Additional Reading:\u00a0A Cactus with Scented and Possibly Bat-Dispersed Fruits<\/a><\/p>\n

\"Rhipsalis <\/a>
Rhipsalis plant <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
\"Rhipsalis <\/a>
Rhipsalis seeds, Daiv Freeman <\/div> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
\"Rhipsalis <\/a>
Rhipsalis campos-portoana with yellow fruits <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
\"Rhipsalis <\/a>
Rhipsalis baccifera with white fruits, FrankVincentz <\/div> <\/div>
\"Rhipsalis <\/a>
Rhipsalis baccifera with white fruits <\/div> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

(Photograph = R. juengeri with greenish fruit) Introduction A new species of Rhipsalis\u2014R. juengeri\u2014was described from the Atlantic Rainforest in eastern Brazil. It forms more than three-meter curtains that hang from the canopy. At the tips of the thin, pendant shoots it bears small, greenish berries that, unusually for a cactus, are strongly scented with […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":4139,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3,1],"tags":[40],"class_list":["post-4137","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cacti","category-other-topic","tag-seeds"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/opuntiads.com\/oblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/06\/rhipsalis-juengeri.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/opuntiads.com\/oblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4137","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/opuntiads.com\/oblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/opuntiads.com\/oblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/opuntiads.com\/oblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/opuntiads.com\/oblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4137"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/opuntiads.com\/oblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4137\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6981,"href":"https:\/\/opuntiads.com\/oblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4137\/revisions\/6981"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/opuntiads.com\/oblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4139"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/opuntiads.com\/oblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4137"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/opuntiads.com\/oblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4137"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/opuntiads.com\/oblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4137"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}