What is a pollinator?

Pollinators are essential for the reproduction of most flowering and many non-flowering plants. As plants cannot move, they rely on external agents to carry pollen. Animal pollinators, including insects, birds, and mammals, are more efficient than wind for pollen transport. Bees are the most important insect pollinators, feeding their larvae pollen and nectar. Butterflies and moths also pollinate flowers using a tongue-like proboscis to suck nectar. Hummingbirds are well-known avian pollinators, but other birds also facilitate pollination. Over 500 species of tropical plants rely on bats, which are drawn to large, white flowers with a fermented or musky odor.

Why are pollinators important for plants?

Pollinators are essential for the sexual reproduction of approximately 300,000 flowering plant species and over 1,000 gymnosperm species. As plants cannot move, they rely on external agents to transport pollen. Major types of pollinators include: * Bees Roughly 20,000 species of bees visit flowers for nectar (adults) and pollen (larvae), inadvertently transferring pollen between plants. * Birds Approximately 2,000 bird species feed on nectar, pollen, and flower-dwelling insects, facilitating pollination, especially in tropical and southern temperate regions. * Butterflies and moths Nearly all Lepidoptera species have a proboscis adapted for nectar-feeding, enabling pollination as they move between flowers. Other pollinators include flies, beetles, bats, small marsupials, and small rodents.

What kinds of animals can be pollinators?

Pollination is vital for the majority of the world’s wild plants and terrestrial ecosystems, as well as for the production of most fruit and seed crops. Plants depend on external agents for pollen transport, mainly relying on animal pollinators such as insects, birds, and mammals. Bees are among the most important insect pollinators. They have physical and behavioral adaptations to obtain food from flowers, like long tongues and hairy bodies. Birds also act as pollinators, especially in the tropics and southern temperate zones. Flowers that rely on birds for pollination are often red, lack a strong smell, are open during the day, and are sturdily constructed. Though less frequent, bats can also be pollinators.

How do bees help with pollination?

Bees, numbering over 20,000 species, rank as the most vital animal pollinators on Earth. They have coevolved with flowers, displaying unique physical and behavioral adaptations such as hairy bodies and specialized pollen baskets, which facilitate pollination. As bees gather nectar and pollen for sustenance, pollen grains adhere to their bodies and are subsequently transferred to other flowers, resulting in cross-pollination. While some bees are generalists, feeding on various plants, others are specialists, exclusively pollinating specific plants. Bees' efficient pollination is critical for both natural ecosystems and human agriculture.

Are birds and bats also important pollinators?

Yes, both birds and bats play significant roles as pollinators in various ecosystems. Bats Over 500 species of tropical plants rely on bats for pollination. These plants often have large, white flowers that are easily spotted at night and emit a fermented or musky odor to attract bats. Nectar-eating bats have adapted with long tongues and good eyesight to locate these flowers. Birds In tropical and southern temperate zones, birds are as important as, or perhaps more important than, insects as pollinators. Around 2,000 bird species visit flowers for nectar, pollen, and insects. Bird-pollinated flowers typically lack a strong smell, are open during the day, are large, and are often red in color to attract birds.

How do pollinators like wind and water differ from animal pollinators?

Wind and water pollination contrasts with animal pollination in several ways. Wind pollination is considered a secondary development in flowering plants, arising as plants moved away from tropical rainforests. It is a wasteful process, relying on the release of vast amounts of pollen due to its lack of precision. Wind-pollinated flowers are inconspicuous, lacking the fragrances, showy petals, and nectar that attract insects. Animal pollinators, such as bees, are highly effective at cross-pollination. Flowers that rely on animal pollination commonly have adaptations such as bright colors, nectar guides, landing platforms, and specialized shapes to attract specific pollinators.

major types of pollinators

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Images

A green orchid bee (Euglossa) clings to the yellow stamens of a white flower while pollinating, with its metallic body and wings clearly visible.

Interactive bumblebee pollen collection feature with Start button, zoom controls, and a close-up photo of a bee on white flowers.

A Clouded Sulphur butterfly, Colias philodice, with yellow wings bordered in dark brown, rests on bright purple butterfly bush flowers.

A Hummingbird hawk moth with striped brown, white, and pink wings hovers near a cluster of pale pink flowers in Yosemite, California.

An adult pepsis wasp, also known as a tarantula hawk, with a black body and orange wings, collects pollen from small white flowers.

A male purple sunbird (Nectarinia asiatica) with iridescent blue-black plumage feeds on nectar from a cluster of pink and white flowers.

An orange nectar bat, Lonchophylla robusta, hovers in flight at night while feeding from a white orchid flower against a black background.

Quick Facts

Related Topics:: Lepidoptera; pollination; bee; pollen

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Nov. 2, 2026 •History

Top Questions

What is a pollinator?
Pollinators are essential for the reproduction of most flowering and many non-flowering plants. As plants cannot move, they rely on external agents to carry pollen. Animal pollinators, including insects, birds, and mammals, are more efficient than wind for pollen transport.

Bees are the most important insect pollinators, feeding their larvae pollen and nectar. Butterflies and moths also pollinate flowers using a tongue-like proboscis to suck nectar. Hummingbirds are well-known avian pollinators, but other birds also facilitate pollination. Over 500 species of tropical plants rely on bats, which are drawn to large, white flowers with a fermented or musky odor.
5 Britannica Sources
Created from Britannica articles using AI. AI can make mistakes, so verify using Britannica articles.
Why are pollinators important for plants?
Pollinators are essential for the sexual reproduction of approximately 300,000 flowering plant species and over 1,000 gymnosperm species. As plants cannot move, they rely on external agents to transport pollen.

Major types of pollinators include:
* Bees Roughly 20,000 species of bees visit flowers for nectar (adults) and pollen (larvae), inadvertently transferring pollen between plants.
* Birds Approximately 2,000 bird species feed on nectar, pollen, and flower-dwelling insects, facilitating pollination, especially in tropical and southern temperate regions.
* Butterflies and moths Nearly all Lepidoptera species have a proboscis adapted for nectar-feeding, enabling pollination as they move between flowers.

Other pollinators include flies, beetles, bats, small marsupials, and small rodents.
3 Britannica Sources
Created from Britannica articles using AI. AI can make mistakes, so verify using Britannica articles.
What kinds of animals can be pollinators?
Pollination is vital for the majority of the world’s wild plants and terrestrial ecosystems, as well as for the production of most fruit and seed crops. Plants depend on external agents for pollen transport, mainly relying on animal pollinators such as insects, birds, and mammals.

Bees are among the most important insect pollinators. They have physical and behavioral adaptations to obtain food from flowers, like long tongues and hairy bodies. Birds also act as pollinators, especially in the tropics and southern temperate zones. Flowers that rely on birds for pollination are often red, lack a strong smell, are open during the day, and are sturdily constructed. Though less frequent, bats can also be pollinators.
3 Britannica Sources
Created from Britannica articles using AI. AI can make mistakes, so verify using Britannica articles.
How do bees help with pollination?
Bees, numbering over 20,000 species, rank as the most vital animal pollinators on Earth. They have coevolved with flowers, displaying unique physical and behavioral adaptations such as hairy bodies and specialized pollen baskets, which facilitate pollination.

As bees gather nectar and pollen for sustenance, pollen grains adhere to their bodies and are subsequently transferred to other flowers, resulting in cross-pollination. While some bees are generalists, feeding on various plants, others are specialists, exclusively pollinating specific plants. Bees' efficient pollination is critical for both natural ecosystems and human agriculture.
7 Britannica Sources
Created from Britannica articles using AI. AI can make mistakes, so verify using Britannica articles.
Are birds and bats also important pollinators?
Yes, both birds and bats play significant roles as pollinators in various ecosystems.
- Bats Over 500 species of tropical plants rely on bats for pollination. These plants often have large, white flowers that are easily spotted at night and emit a fermented or musky odor to attract bats. Nectar-eating bats have adapted with long tongues and good eyesight to locate these flowers.
- Birds In tropical and southern temperate zones, birds are as important as, or perhaps more important than, insects as pollinators. Around 2,000 bird species visit flowers for nectar, pollen, and insects. Bird-pollinated flowers typically lack a strong smell, are open during the day, are large, and are often red in color to attract birds.
4 Britannica Sources
Created from Britannica articles using AI. AI can make mistakes, so verify using Britannica articles.
How do pollinators like wind and water differ from animal pollinators?
Wind and water pollination contrasts with animal pollination in several ways. Wind pollination is considered a secondary development in flowering plants, arising as plants moved away from tropical rainforests. It is a wasteful process, relying on the release of vast amounts of pollen due to its lack of precision. Wind-pollinated flowers are inconspicuous, lacking the fragrances, showy petals, and nectar that attract insects.

Animal pollinators, such as bees, are highly effective at cross-pollination. Flowers that rely on animal pollination commonly have adaptations such as bright colors, nectar guides, landing platforms, and specialized shapes to attract specific pollinators.
4 Britannica Sources
Created from Britannica articles using AI. AI can make mistakes, so verify using Britannica articles.

Pollination is essential to the perpetuation of the vast majority of the world’s wild plants—and thus the perpetuation of nearly all terrestrial ecosystems—as well as to the production of most of the fruit and seed crops that feed humanity. The importance of this seemingly simple movement of sperm-laden pollen to female parts for fertilization cannot be overstated: 300,000 species of flowering plants and more than 1,000 species of gymnosperms depend on pollination for sexual reproduction. As sedentary organisms, plants usually must enlist the services of external agents for pollen transport. Although wind has long been important for the pollination of many gymnosperms and some flowering plants, evolution gave rise to the use of more-efficient animal pollinators—namely, insects, birds, and mammals. Read on to learn about some of the major types of pollinators and the “pollinator syndromes” (suites of flower traits) of the plants that depend on those pollinators.

Insect pollinators

Bees

Bees are probably the most important animal pollinators on earth, and there is no doubt that bees and the flowers they pollinate evolved simultaneously. There are more than 20,000 species of bees, nearly all of which live almost exclusively on flower nectar as adults and on pollen and nectar as larvae; some species also make honey (a modified nectar). As the insects forage from flower to flower, a small amount of pollen is rubbed from their bodies and deposited on the flowers they visit, resulting in cross-pollination. Bees are a diverse group and possess striking physical and behavioral adaptations to facilitate pollination, such as tongues as long as 2.5 cm (1 inch), often hairy bodies, and (in honeybees and bumblebees) special pollen baskets. Many species are generalists, feeding on a variety of plant species. Others are specialists and coevolved with specific plants, such as bee orchids (Ophrys species) and certain goldenrods (Solidago species), to serve as their exclusive pollinators.

Melittophilous (bee-pollinated) flower characteristics

Are often brightly colored, usually yellows or blues
May have nectar guides and/or fragrance
Are commonly hermaphroditic
Provide a landing platform
Have a flower form that may be well adapted to a specific type or species of bee
Examples: numerous across nearly all flowering plant families, especially the aster, rose, heath, and nightshade families.

Butterflies and moths

The evolution of moths and butterflies (order Lepidoptera) was made possible only by the development of the modern flower, which provides their food. Nearly all species of Lepidoptera have a tongue, or proboscis, specially adapted for sucking. The proboscis is coiled at rest and extended in feeding. In general, butterflies are active during the day and alight on the flower. Significantly, some butterflies can taste sugar solutions with their feet. Typically, color and fragrance cooperate in guiding moths and butterflies to flowers, but, in some cases, there is a strong emphasis on just one attractant.

Pychophilous (butterfly-pollinated) flower characteristics

Are conspicuously colored, often red, pink, or purple
Have flowers or inflorescences that provide a landing platform
Provide nectar, often in a deep spur
May be fragrant
Examples: butterfly bush (genus Buddleja), milkweed (genus Asclepias), and verbena (genera Verbena and Glandularia), and many members of the aster and orchid families.

(Read Britannica’s essay “What’s the Difference Between Moths and Butterflies?”)

Unlike butterflies, most moths are active at night and thus visit night-blooming flowers. One of the most remarkable groups of moth pollinators are the yucca moths (genus Tegeticula), each species of which is the unique pollinator of a species of Yucca. These plants and insects are one of the most intimate and famous examples of coevolution and mutualism; i.e., their life cycles are fully dependent on one another. Another notable group of moth pollinators are the hawk moths (family Sphingidae), which characteristically hover while they feed. A clear illustration of convergent evolution, plants across 14 families are adapted for hawk moth pollination and have similar floral shapes and characteristics that attract their pollinators despite their different ancestry.

Phalaenophilous (moth-pollinated) flower characteristics

Are night-blooming
Are white or light colored
Are highly fragrant
Produce nectar
Are often long and narrow, without landing platforms
Have petals that are sometimes fringed
Examples: jimsonweed (Datura stramonium), Stephanotis species, evening primrose (Oenothera species), and honeysuckle (Lonicera species).

Wasps

Wasps are less familiar as pollinators than their bee counterparts, but some species are indeed essential pollinators. The 900 species of fig wasps (family Agaonidae), for example, are responsible for pollinating the world’s 900 species of figs. In what is yet another extraordinary example of coevolution, each species of tiny wasp pollinates only one species of fig, and each fig species has its own wasp species to pollinate it. Tarantula hawks (genus Pepsis) are a somewhat unexpected group of wasp pollinators. They live gently among the flowers when the females are not hunting tarantulas for their young.

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Given that many wasps are incidental pollinators and are not the main drivers of pollen movement for many plants, it is hard to generalize a wasp pollinator syndrome.

Beetles and flies

Although beetles most likely were involved as pollinators when flowering plants as a group were born, beetles as a modern group are not particularly common pollinators. Some are, however, pollen eaters and incidentally transfer pollen in their foraging. As a defensive strategy, certain nectar-free flowers that cater to beetles and bees—such as wild roses, peonies, and poppies—produce a superabundance of pollen, while others (e.g., Cassia) produce a special sterile pollen used by insects as food in addition to normal pollen for fertilization.

Did you know?

The beautiful white flower of the Magnolia Grandiflora, or Southern Magnolia. Magnolias are beetle-pollinated because the ancient plants evolved before bees.

Interestingly, a number of unrelated flowering plants have convergently evolved to exploit a surprising group of beetles and flies: the carrion insects. Normally feeding on rotting animal flesh, certain carrion beetles and flesh flies are essential pollinators for the malodorous flowers that attract them.

Sapromyiophilous (carrion insect-pollinated) flower characteristics

Are red or brown
Are open in structure
Smell strongly of rotting flesh
May generate heat
Examples: titan arum (Amorphophallus titanum), members of the family Rafflesiaceae, carrion flower (genus Stapelia), and cuckoopint (Arum maculatum).

In addition to the flies required of carrion flowers, a number of other flies are important pollinators. Surprisingly, mosquitoes (a type of fly) have long tongues and are effective pollinators of certain orchids (Habenaria species) in North American swamps. In Europe and elsewhere, the bee fly (Bombylius) is an important long-tongued pollinator. South Africa boasts a number of extremely specialized pollinating flies, such as Moegistorhynchus longirostris, which has a tongue that is 60–70 mm (2.4–2.8 inches) long.

Birds

In the tropics and the southern temperate zones, birds are at least as important as pollinators as insects are. Globally, about a third of the 400 families of flowering plants have at least some members with flowers attractive to birds, and about 2,000 species of birds, belonging to 50 or more families, visit flowers more or less regularly to feed on nectar, pollen, and flower-inhabiting insects or spiders. Special adaptations to this way of life, in the form of slender, sometimes curved beaks and tongues provided with brushes or shaped into tubes, are found in more than 1,600 species of eight families: hummingbirds, sunbirds, honeyeaters, brush-tongued parrots, white-eyes, flower-peckers, honeycreepers, and Hawaiian honeycreepers, such as the iiwi. While most of these animals are generalists, visiting any number of plant species, some plants have evolved to rely almost exclusively on pollination by birds.

Ornithophilous (bird-pollinated) flower characteristics

Are often red
Have copious nectar
Are devoid of smell
Are tubular with a wide mouth
Have sticky pollen that often forms clumps or chains
May be pendulous (for hummingbirds) or erect with a landing platform (for other birds)
Examples: cardinal flower (Lobelia cardinalis), fuchsia (genus Fuchsia), red columbine (Aquilegia canadensis), hibiscus (genus Hibiscus), and many members of the pea, orchid, cactus, and pineapple families.

Mammals

Only a few mammal species serve as pollinators for flowering plants. Chief among them are certain highly specialized tropical bats, particularly Macroglossus and Glossophaga, which obtain most or all of their food from flowers. The Macroglossus (big-tongued) species of southern Asia and the Pacific are small bats with sharp snouts and long extensible tongues, which carry special projections (papillae) and sometimes a brushlike tip for picking up a sticky mixture of nectar and pollen. Their eyesight is keen but, since they feed at night, they are probably guided to the flowers principally by their highly developed sense of smell.

Chiropterophilous (bat-pollinated) flower characteristics

Are night-blooming
Are drab in color
Have copious nectar and pollen
Are sturdy and large
May have a rancid or urinelike smell
Have flowers that are pendulous or borne on the main trunk or big limbs of a tree
Examples: saguaro cactus (Carnegiea gigantea), Agave species, calabash tree (Crescentia cujete), and balsa (Ochroma pyramidale).

Beyond bats, a few small terrestrial mammals are also animal pollinators. In Madagascar mouse lemurs (Microcebus), which are only 10 cm (4 inches) long, obtain food from flowers. In Australia the diminutive marsupial honey possums and pygmy possums are also flower specialists.

Melissa Petruzzello Bastiaan J.D. Meeuse