The art of deception: Why morphology matters in flowers' pulling power
Wednesday, September 16, 2015 - 14:00
in Paleontology & Archaeology
Many orchids are masters of sexual deception, tricking male insects into pollinating their flowers by producing chemicals that precisely mimic female insects' sex pheromones. Now, ecologists have discovered that orchids dupe male insects by mimicking how female insects look, as well as how they smell. The study is the first to experimentally investigate the role of flower shape and size in sexually deceptive orchids.