Orchids cheat male ejaculate bees

Few people can resist the appeal of beautiful flowers, but some hornets are even more mature than flower lovers. When standing in front of a beautiful flower, male bees cannot restrain but ejaculate on the petals.

Many insects mistakenly believe flowers are female, but cases like these wasps are rare. Biologist Anne Gaskett of Macquarie University in Australia investigated the link between the hornets and the two Australian tongue orchids and said: "It's hard for these bees to resist the appeal of the flower." .

Orchid is still famous for the talent of " spreading guys ". Many species create female-like scents to lure men to spread pollen to themselves. But most insects only land on the petals and fly away. However, Gaskett found that the Lissopimpla wasps excelsa spent a lot of time wandering the tongue orchids . Many also leave water spots on the petals after flying away.

Under the microscope, the scientists confirmed that the water spots are the sperm that the wasps leave. Next, Gaskett conducted the experiment to see how the bees "loved" the flower, and whether they learned the lesson from the times they were tricked.

In the first visit to the tongue orchid, nearly three-quarters of the men left sperm on the petals. But after many subsequent visits, most of them stopped meeting with beautiful people."Maybe they are not educated, what the female bees really look like, so they mistook the orchid as a female," Gaskett said.

But why did orchid think of such a trick? Gaskett thinks it could be a way for them to spread their own seeds."The flowers that produce ejaculation behavior in insects have the highest pollination rate of similar species. I think ejaculation is just a side effect of the flower being too seductive."

Gaskett argues that the odd breeding life of wasps can explain why males cannot distinguish orchids. Female bees can reproduce themselves without males, and if they mate with each other, only females are created.

"If you're the one and you can't get close to the male just because it's 'bulky' with the orchid, you can still reproduce," Gaskett said.

The real winner is orchid. By tricking male bees to forget female bees and when the female bees give birth, they will create more male bees and tongue orchids to ensure their breed.