Tongue of the Little Spiderhunter

Posted by BESG on 23 December 09, Wednesday
Contributed by Liu Jianzhong

Besides spiders, the Little Spiderhunter (Arachnothera longirostra) is a specialised nectar feeder. Its long tongue can protrude several centimetres beyond the tip of the bill, such that it can probe nectar found deep inside flowers.

The above image by Liu Jianzhong a.k.a. Jz shows the Little Spiderhunter atop the flowering head of the Torch Ginger (Etlingera elatior) just after a satisfying sip of the nectar from one or more of the opened flowers.

Check out our earlier posts on spiderhunters harvesting nectar from various plants as shown below.

This post is a cooperative effort between NaturePixels.org and BESG to bring the study of bird behaviour through photography to a wider audience.

Related Posts:

Little Spiderhunter harvesting nectar from torch ginger Steven Chong sent in an image of a Little... Little Spiderhunter: Nectar from banana flowers An earlier post gave an account of a Spectacled Spiderhunter... Little Spiderhunter and wild banana plant A Little Spiderhunter (Arachnothera longirostra) was photographed collecting nectar... Streaked Spiderhunter catching a spider So far, we have been posting spiderhunters taking nectar... Streaked Spiderhunter’s bill… A Streaked Spiderhunter (Arachnothera magna) and a Little Spiderhunter (A.... Spiderhunters and African tulip Adrian Lim a.k.a. wmw998 photographed a Spectacled Spiderhunter (Arachnothera... Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Email Post

Categories: Feeding-plants

Name (required)

Mail (will not be published) (required)

Website

XHTML: You can use these tags: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <strike> <strong>

Anti-spam word: (Required)*
To prove you're a person (not a spam script), type the security word shown in the picture. Click on the picture to hear an audio file of the word.