The dusting of bright yellow around its muzzle was the giveaway. With its pointed, reddish nose the Ethiopian wolf (Canis simensis) looks more like a fox, but it is the rarest wild canid in the world. The species numbers less than 500 individuals, divided into 99 packs and is only found in the Ethiopian highlands.

The golden pollen embellishing its snout comes from the flamboyant cone-shaped inflorescences of the commonly named red-hot poker plant (Kniphofia foliosa), and it is the first time that the carnivore has been observed eagerly licking the nectar from its tall flowers – a behavior documented in the November 19 issue of Ecology by a team from the Ethiopian wolf conservation program.

Some wolves have been seen visiting up to thirty flowers in a single survey, which begs the question: To what extent does the Ethiopian wolf contribute to the pollination of a flowering plant? The researchers have also found evidence of behavioral and social learning with young wolves being taken to flowering grasslands at the same time as their elders.

"Up to 87% of flowering plant species depend on a wide range of animal species for their pollination," the authors write. "Among mammals, nectivorous pollinator species are mainly represented by flying species such as bats and, to a smaller extent, by some marsupials, rodents, primates and small carnivores."

However, therophily – pollination by non-flying mammals – may be more widespread than previously thought. In 2015, only four species of carnivorous, nectar-feeding mammals were recorded, but since then others have been discovered, such as the masked palm civet or the Cape gray mongoose.

K. foliosa, which flowers abundantly from June to November, attracts a wide variety of pollinators, in particular many passerines. But researchers have also observed other types of mammals consuming the plant's nectar, including domestic dogs, olive baboons and even humans such as the children of the shepherds who live in the highlands. The flower's characteristics, a robust structure with externalized reproductive organs (the pistils and stamens), are likely to lend themselves to therophily.

However, the researchers write that it is "difficult to determine and quantify their (the wolves') value as pollinators." The efficiency of pollination could be undermined by the damage caused by the way the nectar is extracted: some wolves have been seen biting into the flower – a troubling factor.

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