![]() ![]() Secondary robbers often do not have suitable mouth parts to be able to create penetrations into the flowers themselves and reach the nectar without robbing it. Primary robbing is often performed by species with long corollas and are able to pierce or bite holes into the flower. Long flowers with tubular corollas are prone to robbing. The former is most often on flowers whose nectar is concealed or hard to reach. There are two main types of nectar robbing: primary robbing, which requires that the nectar forager perforates the floral tissues itself, and secondary robbing, which is foraging from a robbing hole created by a primary robber. Nectar robbing is specifically the behavior of consuming nectar from a perforation (robbing hole) in the floral tissue rather than from the floral opening. These observations were published in his book The Origin of Species. Charles Darwin observed bumblebees stealing nectar from flowers in 1859. This was recorded in his book, The Secret of Nature in the Form and Fertilization of Flowers Discovered, which was written in Berlin. Records of nectar robbing in nature date back at least to 1793, when German naturalist Christian Konrad Sprengel observed bumblebees perforating flowers. Nectar robbing mammals include a fruit bat and Swinhoe's striped squirrel, which robs nectar from the ginger plant. Nectar robbers vary greatly in species diversity and include species of carpenter bees, bumblebees, stingless Trigona bees, solitary bees, wasps, ants, hummingbirds, and some passerine birds, including flowerpiercers. While there is variation in the dependency on nectar for robber species, most species rob facultatively. Because many species that act as pollinators also act as nectar robbers, nectar robbing is considered to be a form of exploitation of plant-pollinator mutualism. "Nectar robbers" usually feed in this way, avoiding contact with the floral reproductive structures, and therefore do not facilitate plant reproduction via pollination. Nectar robbing is a foraging behavior utilized by some organisms that feed on floral nectar, carried out by feeding from holes bitten in flowers, rather than by entering through the flowers' natural openings. ![]() Foraging behavior Bombus terrestris stealing nectar ![]()
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