A nectar-feeding bat uses a blood-powered hydraulic process to control hair-like structures on its tongue to efficiently slurp up the sugary liquid from flowers. Amid cuts to federal funding, US ...

This story appears in the March 2014 issue of National Geographic magazine. Nature’s inventiveness knows no bounds. Consider the case of the nectar-drinking bat and the night-flowering vine ...

The authors of the study, published today (May 6) in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, claim that the physiological mechanism driving this rapid transformation of the tongue tip could ...

Cristobal Serrano (Spain) illuminates the darkness, revealing the scarlet tongue of a nectar-loving bat as it feeds. Photographing nectar-eating bats pollinating flowers at night is a challenge. But ...