Speaking of moths, everyone must be familiar with them, and when they were young, they could often see moths circling in circles under incandescent lamps. This small insect is distributed all over the world, mostly feeding on plant nectar, and in some areas, even reaching a special "tacit agreement" with local endemic species. Whatever the flowers of a plant grow into, the moths evolve into!
This is a story about the co-evolution of animals and plants, revealing the wonderful process of mutual co-evolution between animals and plants.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="4" > plant with an amazing flower spacing</h1>
The Madagascar Archipelago in Africa, one of the most biodiverse regions in the world, is home to a wide variety of flora and fauna, some of which have never been seen in the outside world, such as the Great Comet Orchid. The most remarkable feature of this plant is that when it flowers, it will grow up to 30 cm long.
There is a glandular structure in the flower distance, and the nectar secreted by the flowers is stored here, and the place where bees and butterflies suck is here, and it also plays a role in pollination. The length of the flower spacing directly affects the species of pollinators. That is, only insects with long enough mouths can become specific pollinators of the Great Comet Orchid.
This is equivalent to a contract with plants and insects, ensuring the specificity of insects and increasing the stability of species inheritance.
In Darwin's time, when he saw the great comet orchid, he predicted that there must be a moth with a long enough beak (the beak is about 30 cm long) that can reach into the flower distance of the orchid to suck honey and pollinate it.
Because in nature, moths are a relatively peculiar insect, they have a layer of fluff on their bodies, and they are easily contaminated with pollen. In the case of the same quality, if you want to increase the probability of pollination, of course, the more you carry, the better, so many plants like moths to spread pollen.
It was also based on this point that Darwin felt that there should be such a long-beaked creature, but due to the level of technology at that time, he did not find an insect that matched the great comet orchid. It wasn't until the 1870s that other botanists found a large moth with a beak length of 25 centimetres in South Africa, more than forty years after Darwin proposed the conjecture.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="11" > coevolution of organisms</h1>
In fact, the long-beaked moth found at that time was not the "designated insect of the Great Comet Orchid" predicted by Darwin, but only one of its distant cousins. Although the creature was found, it was never photographed of the African long-beaked moth sucking on the nectar of the large comet orchid.
This discovery, which dragged on until the end of the 20th century, was captured by a German botanist through infrared night vision goggles, so Darwin's conjecture of "long-flowered adaptation to long-mouth moths" finally waited for the support of conclusive evidence, but all this came too late.
Then again, why does the African long-beaked moth have such a long beak? Doesn't that get in the way of its life?
In fact, all this is precisely for survival, because the longer the beak, the more advantageous it is in natural competition. Insects with long beaks can eat plants with short flower spacing, and they can also eat plants with long flower spacing. For competition in nature, the more extensive the recipe, the more competitive it is.
However, some plants hate long-beaked insects, after all, the beak is too long, and when they suck nectar, they will not get close to the flowers, and the pollen cannot be attached to the insects. The plant is equivalent to being white-hooked by insects, that is, it has lost nectar and has not passed on powder.
So some flowers with relatively short flower spacing began some small actions. For example, substances that are toxic to beaked animals have evolved and mixed into nectar to keep long-beaked insects away. Or adjust the nectar flavor to the dislike of long-beaked insects to drive away long-beaked moths and leave more opportunities for short-beaked insects.
Short flower spacing is more convenient to absorb nectar, which also attracts more insects to spread pollen, and long flower distance plants are not vegetarian, in order to attract other insects to pollinate, but also design some methods to attract insects. For example, increase the amount and amount of sugar in the nectar, so that these special insects only eat their own nectar, which is what the great comet orchid does.
In fact, short-flowered plants and long-distance plants are like two stores, in order to attract different customers to their own stores to consume, came up with a variety of strange moves. The plants in the jungle are like the shopkeepers in the mall, and the animals are like the customers, and the shopkeepers are racking their brains to survive, just to attract customers.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="20" > summary</h1>
In fact, I am not very optimistic about long-flowered plants, which belong to the more serious types of specialization in the process of evolution. Specific insects are needed to help pollinate it, and if this insect is in an existential crisis, the survival of plants with long flower distances will also be problematic.
And long-beaked insects, although food acquisition is more simple, but the beak is too long is also easy to "trip over the mouth", in case some plants entangled in the mouth, then life safety is in danger. This is also one of the harms of specialization, which is competitive in a specific environment, but it is easy to become extinct in another place.
But it's all a two-way choice between plants and insects, and we can't sway, we can only respect!