The Bat, the Blossom and the Biologist

The Bat, the Blossom and the Biologist with Donna Howell There is in Arizona a bat that flies thousands of miles each spring to feed on the flowers of a plant that blooms only once in 25 years-and then dies. Last summer Q.E.D. went to the Sonoran Desert in pursuit of this curious but intimate relationship-for it is a trading of food for sex: the bat gets the food and the flower gets pollinated in exchange. How did such a partnership ever come about? For more than a decade biologist DONNA HOWELL has been unravelling just why two such unlikely partners got together and how they make the most of each other.