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An adult Manduca sexta moth hovers in front of a flower while drinking nectar at night. Quick! Name the top-performing athletes in the animal kingdom. Cheetah? Try again. Blue whale? Nope. Here's a clue: If you take a walk in the desert on a moonlit night, you might see them, darting from flower to flower and hovering in midair: moths of the hawkmoth family (Sphingidae). Nectar-feeding moths, pollinating bats and hummingbirds are masters in sustaining the most intense exercise of all animals. To extract nectar from a flower, they must hover in front of the flower before darting off to the next one. But how can these organisms perform such feats on a diet that's mostly sugar?
New research by University of Arizona biologists not only offers an explanation, but also suggests that these animals stay healthy not despite, but because of, their sugary diet.Image credit: Armin Hinterwirth, University of Washington, Dept. of Biology, Daniel Lab
