81–90 of 105 posts
With more traditional pollinators, I've always found that a fascinating example of bee pollination that does not involve the plant taking advantage of the insect drinking its nectar is Ophrys Apifera, which has a distinct bee-shape silhouette and relies on the mating instincts of male bees in order to pollinate.
The giant arum is another example of beetle pollinated flowers. It smells of manure so attracts manure-loving beetles. With more traditional pollinators, I've always found that a fascinating example of bee pollination that does not involve the plant taking advantage of the insect drinking its nectar is Ophrys Apifera, which has a distinct bee-shape silhouette and relies on the mating instincts of male bees in order t…
The giant arum is another example of beetle pollinated flowers. It smells of manure so attracts manure-loving beetles. With more traditional pollinators, I've always found that a fascinating example of bee pollination that does not involve the plant taking advantage of the insect drinking its nectar is Ophrys Apifera, which has a distinct bee-shape silhouette and relies on the mating instincts of male bees in order t…
Interesting. I never thought worker bees retained any mating instincts.
These are the original articles this re-heat was created from: - https://www.zmescience.com/science/news-science/magnolias-be... - https://gardens.si.edu/learn/blog/the-botany-of-magnolias/
Thanks. The first article has more info, e.g. that those beetles are flightless. But that makes me suspect that they spend a lot of time on one tree, only pollinating that tree, which would be pointless because there is no exchange of genes.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Finding hawk moth caterpillars on my tomato plant was one of the bigger wtfs of my adult life
Honestly you're lucky there were any leaves left. You must have caught it within two or three hours after its arrival. In the US we have similar hawk moths; the tomato hornworm also looks like a hummingbird when it reaches maturity.
Their moths are important pollinators of some nice native flowers.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
My magnolia is the only thing that seems to attract honeybees, which I rarely see otherwise. The article doesn't seem to justify the "not bees" part, though. I'd imagine bees can pollinate them too.
You should plant clover. You'll get plenty of bees.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The early Hymenoptera were predatory, like wasps still are. Bees, which feed on pollen and nectar from plant flowers, instead of catching other insects, have evolved much later from wasp-like Hymenoptera, after angiosperms were already widespread. So the timeline fits into the story.
> were predatory ... ? Were they? Sawflies are herbivores, and are at minimum share a common ancestor with those that were not herbivores. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S096098221...
So there is no doubt that the immediate ancestors of bees were predatory, like also their more distant ancestors that they share with ants and other kinds of wasps.
Hymenoptera has split early into two branches, one leading to wasps and the other to sawflies.
Most sawflies, as you say, feed on plants. So the question is what kind of food was used by the common ancestor of all Hymenoptera, given that from that ancestor there are two descendant groups, one predatory and one phytophagous (plant-eating).
There is no certain evidence for this, but there are arguments that it is much more likely that the common ancestor was predatory and the sawflies have evolved from that into plant-eating insects.
There are two arguments for this. One is that eating plants is more difficult for animals and all plant-eating animals had to develop special abilities in order to digest plants. Because of this there are a lot of examples among animal groups where the ancestors of a group were predatory, and only some of their descendants have succeeded to transition to feeding on plants.
There are much fewer examples of plant-eating animals that have become predatory again, because once some animals become able to eat plants, they normally have access to a much more abundant source of food than the predatory animals, so reverting to a predatory lifestyle would be disadvantageous. Humans are one of the few exceptions, because their ability to throw weapons at a distance has allowed them to become extremely successful hunters.
The second argument is that Hymenoptera form one of the two branches of Holometabola, the insects with complete metamorphosis. For the orders of insects that belong to the other branch of Holometabola, e.g. for beetles, wherever there is reasonable certainty about the lifestyle of the ancestors, they were also predatory, so it is more likely that the common ancestor of all Holometabola was also predatory.