Optical Illusion May Attract Insects

Biological Strategy

AskNature Team

Image: Andrew Maniskas / Flickr / CC BY - Creative Commons Attribution alone

Capture, Absorb, or Filter Organisms

Many living systems must secure organisms for food. But just as one living system must capture its prey to survive, its prey must escape to survive. This results in capture and avoidance strategies that include trickery, speed, poisons, constructed traps, and more. For example, a carnivorous plant called the pitcher plant has leaves formed into a tube that collect water. Long, slippery hairs within the tube face downward. When insects enter the tube seeking nectar, they lose their footing and slide inside, unable to climb out and escape being eaten and digested by the plant.

Search this Function

Flowering Plants

Clade Angiosperms (“receptacle seed”): Dandelions, oaks, grasses, cacti, apples

With 416 families containing some 300,000 known species, angiosperms are the most diverse group of plants, and they can be found around the globe in a wide variety of habitats. They are characterized by seeds that grow enclosed in ovaries, which are enclosed in flowers. The floral organs then develop into fruits of myriad kinds and dimensions, from simple seed casings on maples to elaborate fleshy growths like papayas. The oldest flower known from fossils, Montsechia vidalii, appeared during the Jurassic Period 130 million years ago. They are the primary food source for herbivorous animals, which in turn makes them the indirect food source for carnivores as well.

Search this Living System

The spathe of the titan arum may attract insects by creating an optical illusion of radiating bright light, using a delicate shading of red pigment that turns to white at the very bottom.

“Looking down into [the spathe’s] depths, there seemed to be a light shining up from the bottom. The illusion was created by a fine shading of the red that turned to white at the lowest point. If any insect flying in the neighbourhood was positively attracted by bright light – and there are many which are – then the spathe’s colouring might have been an optical inducement to fly down to the depths of the great funnel and reach the flowers clustered around the base of the spadix.” (Attenborough 1995:139)

Last Updated August 18, 2016

References

Book

The Private Life of Plants

BBC Books | 21/08/1995 | David Attenborough

embedly preview

AskNature