A species of wolf in Ethiopia has been filmed unexpectedly licking flowers, suggesting the carnivores could perform the role of giant, ground-bound bees.
As the fuzzy red wolves slink from bloom to bloom, lapping at the flower’s sweet stickiness, their white snouts are painted yellow by the red hot poker flower’s pollen.
So Oxford University ecologist Sandra Lai and team suspect these otherwise strict meat eaters may be spreading that pollen from one Kniphofia foliosa plant to another, making the Ethiopian wolf (Canis simensis) the first example of a large, carnivoran pollinator.
“Wolves were observed foraging for nectar on K. foliosa flowers, which deposited a relatively large amount of pollen on their muzzles, suggesting they could contribute to pollination,” the team writes in their paper, explaining more research is needed to confirm successful pollination.
The video provided in Supplementary Information from the very interesting paper by Lai and co-authors in Ecology, showing potential pollination by Ethiopian wolves of Kniphofia foliosa! 🐺
Read it here: esajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/…
@pollinet.bsky.social
— FLOWer Lab 🌸🍒 🐝 🪰🔬🧬 (@flowerlab.bsky.social) Nov 21, 2024 at 9:41 PM
If they are contributing to flower fertilization, the endangered wolves would join an exclusive but adorable group of non-flying mammals that pollinate plants. Examples of what is referred to as therophily include rodents, primates, elephant shrews and honey possums (Tarsipes rostratus) – the only entirely nectarivorous mammal that isn’t a bat.
Over years of field work, Lai and colleagues noted the wolves’ occasional penchant for sugar. To investigate further, they tracked six different wolves from different packs across four days.
“I first became aware of the nectar of the Ethiopian red hot poker when I saw children of shepherds in the Bale Mountains licking the flowers,” explains University of Oxford conservation biologist Claudio Sillero. “In no time, I had a taste of it myself – the nectar was pleasantly sweet.”
During the study the team observed one individual wolf visit up to 30 flowers in a single foray.
Flowers that rely on mammal pollination tend to be robust or have special adaptations, and the red hot poker is no exception. Its blooms, known as racemes, clump around heads that can grow on a stalk that reaches up to a meter (about 3 feet) from the ground.
Almost 90 percent of Earth’s flowering plants depend on animals for pollination, and these findings suggest the role of lesser known pollinators may be larger than we realized.
Most mammals involved in pollination are typically small to medium sized and usually arboreal like bats or sugar gliders. The few other meat-eating mammals that are known to dine on nectar are small-bodied species like civet or racoon relatives, making the fox-colored wolf stand out.
With fewer than 500 individuals in the wild, the Ethiopian wolf is Africa’s most endangered carnivore.
Like many of Earth’s most endangered species, this unique wolf is a specialized feeder, dining mostly on specific rodents found in the mountainous regions of Africa, presumably followed by a flowery dessert as a treat. Just like its primary prey, the wolf is also only found over seven mountain ranges, isolated above altitudes of 3,000 meters.
Genetics suggests these wolves are a remnant ancestral group of a line of canids that eventually became Gray wolves.
The team are keen to confirm whether pollination in fact takes place, and explore if there’s any evidence of co-evolution between this unusual pair.
“These findings highlight just how much we still have to learn about one of the world’s most-threatened carnivores,” says Lai.
This research was published in Ecology.
