{"id":234568,"date":"2026-04-03T18:07:17","date_gmt":"2026-04-03T23:07:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/04\/exposing-secret-night-operations-between-hawkmoths-and-japans-black-nectar-flowers"},"modified":"2026-04-03T18:07:17","modified_gmt":"2026-04-03T23:07:17","slug":"exposing-secret-night-operations-between-hawkmoths-and-japans-black-nectar-flowers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/04\/exposing-secret-night-operations-between-hawkmoths-and-japans-black-nectar-flowers","title":{"rendered":"Exposing secret night operations between hawkmoths and Japan\u2019s black-nectar flowers"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/exposing-secret-night-operations-between-hawkmoths-and-japans-black-nectar-flowers.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Researchers Soma Chiyoda, Ko Mochizuki, and Atsushi Kawakita from the University of Tokyo have discovered that nocturnal hawkmoths are the main pollinators of <i>Jasminanthes mucronata<\/i>, a plant species native to Japan that produces black nectar. This is the first time that a colored nectar flower has been confirmed to be mainly pollinated by nocturnal insects. The discovery thus promotes further research into this so far unexplored ecology. The findings were <a href=\"https:\/\/esajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com\/doi\/10.1002\/ecy.70370\" target=\"_blank\">published<\/a> in the journal Ecology.<\/p>\n<p>In ancient Greek mythology, nectar was the drink of the gods, the key to their immortality. Real-life nectar might not confer immortality to its consumers, but it certainly helps many a creature stay alive by providing them with rich nutrition. The creatures feeding on these plants then unwittingly carry their pollen across the landscape. To draw a map of this complex web of co-existence, we must discern whether species interact with one another.<\/p>\n<p>As nectar is generally transparent, flowers that produce colored nectar have garnered particular attention in the research community. However, due to the visual nature of <a href=\"https:\/\/phys.org\/news\/2025-05-nocturnal-pollinators-important-daytime-colleagues.html?utm_source=embeddings&utm_medium=related&utm_campaign=internal\" rel=\"related\">colored nectar<\/a>, researchers have focused mostly on daytime animals as potential pollinators.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Researchers Soma Chiyoda, Ko Mochizuki, and Atsushi Kawakita from the University of Tokyo have discovered that nocturnal hawkmoths are the main pollinators of Jasminanthes mucronata, a plant species native to Japan that produces black nectar. This is the first time that a colored nectar flower has been confirmed to be mainly pollinated by nocturnal insects. [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":662,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[269],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-234568","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-life-extension"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/234568","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/662"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=234568"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/234568\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=234568"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=234568"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=234568"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}