Archive for the ‘evolution’ tag
What do dinosaurs and orchids have in common?
They were both sharing the planet together way back when.
A recently discovered piece of amber contains the first confirmed orchid fossil ever found. The ancient orchid, classified as Meliorchis caribea, reveals new information about the origin of orchids. “The question is: how old are they?” asks Santiago RamÃrez, of the the department of organismic and evolutionary biology and the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard University in Cambridge, MA. “There’s been a lot of speculation.”. . .
The researchers place the arrival of orchids between 76 to 84 million years ago. RamÃrez and his colleagues published the findings in the journal Nature this week. Based on the study, RamÃrez says, orchids coexisted with dinosaurs and likely started to flourish shortly after the mass extinction between the Cretaceous and Tertiary.
Age old orchid
Orchids are from Venus, pollinators are from Mars
Australian orchids are engaged in an arms race, using sensory overload to seduce male insects. Macquarie University PhD student Anne Gaskett has discovered just how they do it. Her work is important to the conservation of orchids and the control of economically important agricultural pests.”I have accumulated the first compelling evidence of an ongoing and escalating arms race between orchids and their unwitting insect pollinators,” Gaskett, says, “Over generations the insects learn to avoid having sex with orchids, and this means only the most persuasive orchids reproduce, which drives the acceleration of orchid subterfuge.”
. . .Gaskett has been studying the hardworking Orchid Dupe wasp (Lissopimpla excelsa), which is fooled into copulating with not just one, but five native Tongue Orchid species (Cryptostylis) in urban and regional Australia. All the Tongue Orchid species mimic the female Orchid Dupe wasp. But, to the human eye, they look quite different.. . .Australian orchids’ sneaky sex tricks
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Anne Gaskett
