- Explorer Moments
Can the Bat Man of Mexico also be Tequila's Super Hero?
Conservationist Rodrigo Medellin's efforts to save the lesser long-nosed bat is tied to Mexico's blue agave plant.
Like tequila?
Ecologist and conservationist Rodrigo Medellín wants your brand to be bat-friendly.
Bats have long been among the world’s most despised animals, due largely to myth and Hollywood’s fascination with vampire bats. But Medellín is trying to lead a the perceptual transformation of the bat, from blood-sucking demon to unsung nature hero, and hopes a bat-friendly tequila will provide a major public relations boost.
Aside from consuming loads of crop-destroying insects, bats are plant pollinators, and Medellín's prized lesser long-nosed bat pollinates the cactuslike blue agave plant, the single plant species from which Mexican tequila is produced.
Habitat destruction has been especially harmful to the lesser long-nosed bat, first listed as a threatened species in Mexico in 1994. By 2008 it
