Larceny of Wild Cotton Nectar by Jalisco Hummingbirds

This spring I began to look at what pollinates a species of wild cotton (Gossypium aridum) found here in Jalisco. A chapter by Parra Tabla and Bullock in the Historia Natural de Chamela suggested that, given the floral characteristics of G. aridum, I was most likely to find that hummingbirds were the main pollinators.

It didn’t take much time to discover that hummingbirds did indeed visit G. aridum.  Initially these were mostly migrating female Black-chinned Hummingbirds (Archilochus alexandri) although males also occasionally visited. In all cases, though, these birds did not collect nectar through the floral opening but rather between the petals at the base of the flower.

In the past, I would have called this nectar theft and as I thought of putting this post together, a number of witty titles came to mind.  However, in looking over some background for this post I ran across a note in the journal Ecology by David Inouye titled “The Terminology of Floral Larceny” where I discovered that using the term nectar theft for what I had seen would not be consistent with what the experts in the field would call it.

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