Orchids and 'sexual deception'

[Tindomul]

I know this is old news to most of us, but there have got to be some curious onlookers, and newbies who would be interested.

In Europe there is an orchid, Ophryus sphegodes that manages to get themselves pollinated via deception. They manage to decieve male bees into mating with the flower. This act cuases the orchids to either get pollinated or release the pollen.

The orchids have evolved a set of chemicals that to the bees smell like a female. Now here is the interesting part. The bees are able to remember these smells, and each flower emits a different smell. So when the male realizes his mistake, he doesn't come back to the same flower. This helps prevent self pollination. Isn't that cool!

In Australia there is a whole group of orchids that appear do be doing the same thing with wasps instead of bees. Dr. Florian Schiestl of the Australian National University has been trying to see if the orchids in Australia do the same thing as the ones in Europe.

One last note to mention. These chemicals don't seem to have evolved just attract male insects, but they first evolved as the wax covering on the flowers to prevent water loss. So the chemical concoction that the wax is made of just happened to emit the same smell as female insects. Hmmm, which came first I wonder, the ability to smell like a female bee/wasp, or was that a happy coincidence that evolution took advantage of.

Hope you all enjoyed this post, and here is a link to site where I found my info. Thanks for reading, and feedback/comments (hint...oohs and ahhhs) would be nice.

http://www.cbu.edu/~seisen/TwistedOrchids.htm