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Sticky snack for sengis: The Cape rock elephant-shrew, Elephantulus edwardii (Macroscelidea), as a pollinator of the Pagoda lily, Whiteheadia bifolia (Hyacinthaceae)

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Abstract

Following the recent discovery of rodent pollination in the Pagoda lily, Whiteheadia bifolia (Hyacinthaceae) in South Africa, now the Cape rock elephant-shrew, Elephantulus edwardii (Macroscelidea, Afrotheria) is reported as an additional pollinator. Elephant-shrews, live-trapped near W. bifolia plants, were released in two terraria, containing the plants. The animals licked nectar with their long and slender tongues while being dusted with pollen and touching the stigmas of the flowers with their long and flexible noses. The captured elephant-shrews had W. bifolia pollen in their faeces, likely as a result of grooming their fur as they visited the flowers without eating or destroying them. The animals mostly preferred nectar over other food. This is the first record of pollination and nectar consumption in the primarily insectivorous E. edwardii, contributing to the very sparse knowledge about the behaviour of this unique clade of African mammals, as well as pollination by small mammals.

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Acknowledgements

Thanks go to Haffie Strauss for friendly permission to work on her property, Connie Krug for providing traps, Anton Pauw for support (funding from the National Research Foundation of South Africa), him and two anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments on the manuscript, the Claude Leon foundation for awarding a research fellowship as well as the Ethics Committee of the University of Stellenbosch and CapeNature (Western Cape Nature Conservation Board, South Africa) for the necessary permits.

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  1. Department of Botany and Zoology, University of Stellenbosch, Private Bag X1, Stellenbosch, 7602, South Africa

    Petra Wester

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  1. Petra Wester
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Correspondence to Petra Wester.

Electronic supplementary material

Slides 1–42: Elephantulus edwardii visiting Whiteheadia bifolia flowers of different plants: lapping nectar with its tongue, touching the pollen sacs and getting dusted with pollen on its long nose.

Slides 1–12

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Slides 13–26

(PDF 7,238 kb)

Slides 27–42

(PDF 8,177 kb)

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Wester, P. Sticky snack for sengis: The Cape rock elephant-shrew, Elephantulus edwardii (Macroscelidea), as a pollinator of the Pagoda lily, Whiteheadia bifolia (Hyacinthaceae). Naturwissenschaften 97, 1107–1112 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00114-010-0723-6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00114-010-0723-6

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