"the species... entice pollinators with false promises of sex... the tongue orchids of Australia are such thoroughly convincing mimics of female wasps that males not only try to mate with them, but they actually do mate with them to the point of ejaculation.
Its always been described as pseudocopulation, said Anne Gaskett, a graduate student at Macquarie University in Australia and the lead author of the study. But it looked like true copulation to me. ... the study, published last month in The American Naturalist, suggests a potentially huge cost to the wasps. If males waste all their sperm on orchids, Ms. Gaskett asked, what have they got to offer a real female? ... some female wasps without sufficient sperm tend to produce more sons or, from the orchids perspective, more pollinators. Increasing the numbers of males, scientists say, could even make males a bit more desperate and less discriminating another potential advantage for an orchid trying to fool a male into giving the not-quite-right-looking fake female sitting immobile inside its petals a try." URL : http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/15/science/15wasp.html?ref=science photo : [Tongue orchid + wasp] http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2008/07/15/science/15wasp_450.jpg ***************** Regards, VB _______________________________________________ the OrchidGuide Digest (OGD) [email protected] http://orchidguide.com/mailman/listinfo/orchids_orchidguide.com
