Muscular head pumps give long-proboscid fly the edge
Wednesday, December 11, 2013 - 09:30
in Biology & Nature
A long-proboscid fly with an extra-long, tongue-like proboscis might seem to take extra-long to feed on a flower, but it actually has an advantage over its counterparts with average sized nectar-sipping mouth parts. It can suck up almost all nectar available in a flower in one go, because it has more efficient suction pumps in its head, says Florian Karolyi of the University of Vienna in Austria, about a study he and his team conducted in South Africa's Namaqualand region. The findings are published in Springer's journal Naturwissenschaften - The Science of Nature.