Plant developed sonar dish to attract bats

A rainforest Vine has evolved disk-shaped leaves so bats using echolocation can find it more easily.

the Marcgravia evenia from Cuba has developed a concave leaf next to its flowers, reminiscent of a disk reflector. Analysis of the leaf's acoustic reflection properties has shown it to be an ideal echo beacon, sending back strong, multidirectional echoes, easily recognisable for echolocating bats.

the Marcgravia evenia from Cuba has developed a concave leaf next to its flowers, reminiscent of a disk reflector. Analysis of the leaf's acoustic reflection properties has shown it to be an ideal echo beacon, sending back strong, multidirectional echoes, easily recognisable for echolocating bats.

from experiments performed on bats trained to drink from randomly placed nectar feeders, it was found that placing a replica of the Marcgravia evenia's dish shaped lead above the feeder halved the bats search time, while a normal shaped leaf barely improved it.

For the plant, the adapted leaves are a huge selective advantage since bats are such efficient pollinators. Bats deliver on average ten times the number of pollen grains as hummingbirds and can transport the grains up to thirty miles from their source!

a demonstration of the pollen carrying capacity of bat fur

just as brightly coloured flowers attract visually-guided pollinators such as bees and birds, this clever Cuban vine (and many other bat pollinated plants) by evolution have adapted to provide the perfect shaped leaves which provide the best acoustic signature to the bats.