Researchers report for the first time that some nectar-feeding bats metabolize sugar at the same frantic rate as hummingbirds do.
Like hummingbirds, South American long-tongued bats (Glossophaga soricina) hover at flowers and feed on sugar-rich nectar. While other mammals, including people, convert sugars to glycogen and store it in body tissues for later use, the bats extract energy immediately from almost all the sugars. This “little metabolic trick,” says coauthor John Speakman of the University of Aberdeen in Scotland, was previously seen only in birds, such as the hummingbird, and not mammals.