You don't have to know what you're doing to be a pollinator. Bees and birds visiting a flower will get dusted with pollen and carry it to other flowers whether they like it or not! And that's all the saguaro needs.
Birds and insects are important during the day, but the night-flowering habit of this cactus provides a special clue to its most favoured group of pollinators: the night-flying nectar-feeding bats.
Experiments have in fact shown that these bats are more efficient cross-pollinators than either insects or birds. No wonder so much of the saguaro's flowering is at night!
