November has arrived, and as soon as winter has passed, most of China has ushered in a cold wave, the overall atmosphere has become depressed, and the frequency of seeing small animals has become lower and lower.
However, in some parts of south and southwest China, due to the small temperature difference throughout the year, there are still some lively scenes. From time to time, near the flowers in the suburbs, streams in the forest, and even near the flowers in the green vegetation of the community, you can see some dark figures quickly passing through it, and the frequency of flapping wings is so high that it is almost impossible to see its appearance.
Sometimes when my family calls me, they will say that today there are moths on the balcony to eat nectar, and they are pitch black and flying like an oversized fly...
Adzuki bean long-beaked moth
See watermark for image source
What the hell is this moth?
Many people mistakenly think that these lively little flying objects are hummingbirds, but hummingbirds only live in the Americas, and Asia is unlikely to be seen, which is also a cliché in popular science.
These so-called "hummingbirds" are mostly diurnal moth species, mostly members of the genus Long-beaked Apocyn, the black-edged moth and the transfiguration moth.
The protrusion of the flower is a long-beaked moth
Photo: Wang Jishen
If you look closely, when these astute moths hover near the flowers, they will protrude from their mouths into the flowers to feed on the nectar, which is actually a highly specialized mouth organ unique to Lepidoptera insects , the siphon mouth organ.
Their beaks can be bent and stretched at any time in order to suck nectar, water, and even animal excrement, etc., and obtain more energy per unit of time. Don't say that people have heavy tastes, in fact, animal excrement is rich in small molecules of inorganic acids, and there are many nutrients.
A beak that can be bent
Image source: wikiwand
It can be seen that the siphon mouthpiece is an advanced stage in the evolution of insect mouthparts. Among Lepidoptera insects, with the exception of butterflies, moths are the most easily observed taxa feeding on siphon mouthparts.
Butterflies suck up nectar
Image credit: Photos Getty/iStock
When you are not eating, how to collect this mouthpiece? Even if you can roll it up, you will be panicked when you put your chin down.
Don't worry, the inside of their lips and whiskers have evolved disc-shaped grooves for this purpose, which is convenient for placing the curled beak, just like a mosquito coil.
The moth's lips must have grooves specially placed when the beak is coiled up, which looks like a mosquito coil.
A moth-wound mouthpiece
Image source: Müller et al
At the same time, do you remember any childhood food? Isn't this the big roll I ate when I was a kid!!
The dao is one foot high, and the devil is one foot high
A small group of moths with specific habits, such as the grimace moth genus, has a short, thick and short beak and terminal, and often sneaks into the hive to suck honey.
Grimace Moth
Image credit: Torsten Pröhl
The beak of the Grimace Moth
Image credit: Sphingidae of the Eastern Palaearctic
Most moths are still dominated by flower visits, and over the course of their long evolution, there is a very delicate evolutionary relationship between their beaks and flowering plants.
The most classic examples are the story of the Great Comet Orchid and the African Long-beaked Moth.
Let's first take a look at what the Great Comet Orchid looks like
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The flower distance is so long, how can animals still suck nectar?
Let's look at the African long-beaked moth
Large comet orchid and African long-beaked moth
Image credit: Image source: Minden Pictures SuperStock
Good fellow, this is the road is one foot high, the devil is one foot high!
Let's summarize the timeline of this story:
In 1862, Darwin, while studying an orchid from Madagascar with a long flower distance, thought that there must be an insect with a long enough beak to help it pollinate;
In 1903, this moth was published and named "Xanthopan morganii praedicta", classified as the Malagasy endemic subspecies of the African long-beaked moth Xanthopan morganii, and the subspecies suffix praedicta also pays tribute to Darwin's conjecture in the word meaning, so some people also call it "predictor moth";
In 1992, with the help of advanced infrared night vision equipment and other observation equipment, German scientists recorded for the first time in the form of images the visit of the African long-beaked moth to the large comet orchid.
In October, an article co-published by Dr David C. Lees, director of the British Museum of Natural History, and several other scholars re-examined the taxonomic status of the African long-beaked moth.
In this article in October this year, the authors found through nearly 6 years of sample collection and data analysis that there is actually a big gap between the "predictive moth" and the African long-beaked moth, whether it is in the morphology of body shape, wing type, pattern, coat color, anatomy, etc., or in the molecular biology of evolutionary relationships, interspecific genetic differences and so on.
Based on these differences, the "predictive moth" was confirmed to be an independently evolved species 118 years after its publication, and the second species in the genus Xanthopan. (To distinguish between the two species, Xanthopan morganii praedicta is collectively referred to below as the prediction moth.)
In the analysis process, beak length is an important morphological consideration indicator. In fact, it is predicted that the beak of the moth is longer, longer, longer, and longer than that of the African long-beaked moth...
On the left is the predictor moth, and on the right is the African long-beaked moth
Image credit: David C. Lees et al
Why is this evolutionary relationship?
Wallace once proposed a conjecture about predicting the evolutionary relationship between the moth and the great comet orchid:
For orchids that are eaten, flowers that are too short will cause the nectar to be eaten by the moth in vain, and the pollen will not be transmitted - only when the moth puts the body on the flower, the hairy and fat body can effectively contaminate and carry the pollen. Therefore, the traits of short flower spacing are constantly eliminated, while the long flower spacing traits are retained.
For moths, the short-beaked taxa lose interest in long-distance plants because they cannot effectively absorb nectar, and instead feed on some other short-distance plants, while the long-beaked taxa retains traits and continues to co-evolve with long-distance plants.
As a result, generation after generation, both the flower distance and the length of the mouthparts of the moth are increasing.
Predict the moth and the great comet orchid
Image credit: Joseph Arditti et al
However, some scholars believe that the impetus generated by the evolution of the moth's beak length and orchid flower distance may be due to predators on orchids, such as spiders.
Many moths with long beaks often have a "wobbly" behavior when visiting flowers, constantly circling between multiple flowers to feed, rather than staying on the surface of a flower steadily, which is likely to test whether there are pre-ambush predators on the flowers.
Predators such as spiders on flowers will ambush the moths
Over time, the moth's beak becomes longer, which reduces the risk of predation due to proximity to the flowers. Orchids with long flower spacing need a longer flower spacing to attract moths to keep getting close to the flowers in order to contaminate the pollen.
However, due to the lack of some observational evidence, whether this theory is a universal conclusion or only applies to a certain region or a certain group of groups remains to be further investigated and explored.
Far aside from Africa, there are also many long-beaked moths in Asia and the American continent, such as the Megacorma obliqua. It is the longest beak moth recorded in China, and its beak length once reached 13-16 cm.
The ape-faced moth is the longest-distributed moth in China , living mainly in the tropics , and may also visit long-flowered plants. Shooting: Thorn
However, at present, the ecological records such as the flower objects of the ape-faced moth are still blank, so there are still many wonderful stories between the moth and its flower-visiting plants, waiting for us to discover.
Written by | Thorns
WeChat Editor | What a cool