To find out how orchids exploit sex-crazed wasps for their own reproduction (and for lots of other marvels of coevolution), check out the November issue of Discover, which has an excerpt from my new book, The Tangled Bank.
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Carl Zimmer writes about science regularly for the New York Times and magazines such as Discover, where he is a contributing editor and columnist.
He is the author of seven books, the most recent of which is The Tangled Bank: An Introduction To Evolution. His website is carlzimmer.com and his address is [ blog at carlzimmer dot com ].
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November 23rd, 2009 at 6:32 pm
I’ve been following another blog about evolution that mentioned this behavior: Orchids mimic alarm pheromones of bees to attract wasps.
The two interesting points I took away from that other blog are:
1) The idea of wasps as flying penises.
2) The idea that you’re better mimicking an alarm pheromone of a prey species than a sex pheromone because you double the number of potential pollinators.
November 24th, 2009 at 11:32 am
@Oroboros
), I would just add that in most species of parasitoid wasps I can think of, females are the only ones to hunt a living prey (I am sure some real entomologist will swing by and let us know). So, still targeting half of the clients but it’s the other half.
Going on a limb, not reading the article you sited (how scholarly of me
November 24th, 2009 at 11:41 am
The dupe wasp! Ha!