Fig trees and Amazon fruit bats provide an excellent example of a dependent relationship in nature, a term known as symbiosis. Without each other the fig tree and fruit bat would have a difficult time surviving.

According to an article on the website of the PBS television show Nature, fruit bats nightly eat half their body weight in figs. Clearly, the fig tree is a necessary staple in the Amazon fruit bat’s survival. Without these trees, the fruit bat’s food source would quickly be depleted.

Fruit bats return the favor to the fig tree by doing their own share of the work. Many times, fruit bats carry their food a short distance away instead of perching in the tree while they eat it. The fruit’s seeds fall as they eat, and another fig tree has the opportunity to grow. In the case that the bat swallows the seeds, they pass through the animal’s digestive tract unharmed and are expelled in a new location.

The Amazon fruit bat’s eating habits not only help deposit the fig trees seeds, but also ensure that seedling will sprout far enough from the parent tree that they do not have to compete for root space and soil nutrients.