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The famous 'corpse flower' mimics the smell of rotting vertebrate carrion to attract insects that can carry and disseminate its pollen.
This newly discovered flower employs the same trickery, but using the odor of dead insects.
This newly discovered flower employs the same trickery, but using the odor of dead insects.
FULL STORY: https://www.upi.com/Science_News/20...-flowers-deceptive-pollination/6451621623119/Newly discovered flower mimics the smell of rotting insects to trap coffin flies
Scientists have uncovered the deceptive pollination tactics of a first-of-its-kind flower that mimics the scent of decaying insects to attract and entrap so-called coffin flies.
Flies from the genus Megaselia don't like to eat rotting flesh -- instead, they mate atop and lay their eggs inside decaying insect corpses. ...
... [The] flower Aristolochia microstoma -- described Friday in the journal Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution -- evolved foul-smelling flowers.
The novel flower isn't carnivorous, though. Rather, it traps flies to utilize their pollination services. ...
Once trapped inside the putrid scented petals, the coffin flies pollinate the female organs before being coated in pollen by the male organs. ...
"Our results suggest that this is the first known case of a flower that tricks pollinators by smelling like dead and rotting insects rather than vertebrate carrion" ...
A small minority of plants -- 4 to 6 percent -- are pollinated under false pretenses, using appearance or scent to advertise an absent award to pollinators.
Many orchids use deceptive pollination, as do many members of the genus Aristolochia. ...
Small hairs inside the petals of Aristolochia flowers guide trapped insects toward the sexual organs. On their way down, pollen from the insect is deposited onto the female organs.
The presence of the trapped insect causes the stamen to ripen and release pollen to be carried elsewhere. After pollination, the hairs whither and the insect can escape. ...