[Pollinator] Flowers of ill repute?

[Peter Bernhardt]

Here's a piece of natural history we've probably all seen but have we every really discussed it?  Every year I plant zinnias in my front garden.  They start blooming in August and every year I see the same thing.  Monarchs heading south use the zinnias as a source of nectar but also as a copulation site.  There's at least one mating pair a year and they seem to prefer the red zinnias.


Who else has seen pollinators using flowers in this way?  What were the pollinator and plant species?  I'm not referring to orchids that mimic the bodies of females to attract males that pollinate the flower (eg. Ophrys).  Some cases are  old in the literature.  It's especially common in certain plants pollinated exclusively by beetles.  This includes plants that evolved chamber-like blossoms that open, close and reopen over a 24 hour period.  The best known are members of the water lily family and magnolias, anonnas and their relatives.  However, Peter Goldblatt's work on members of the iris family (Iridaceae) in South Africa showed that a number of species depended on monkey beetles (Rutilinae).  Male beetles often defend flowers from other males to gain first access to incoming females.


The most dramatic example I've seen was in Australia in 2009.  Male Thynnid wasps are very important as pollinators there with hundreds of species but females are wingless.  Following the nuptial flight the male takes the female (still attached) to a nectar source and offers her regurgitated nectar before releasing her.  In Western Australia from September to October I saw dozens of these male wasps, en-copula bringing their "dates" to flowers in the Myrtaceae.   Members of this family usually have shallow, cup-bowl shaped flowers.  The greatest numbers of mating wasps were on the Geraldton wax flower (Chamelaucium uncinatum).


Peter




-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.sonic.net/pipermail/pollinator/attachments/20190812/b92cd0e4/attachment.html>