Size does matter for sexually deceptive orchids »

Researchers at The Australian National University (ANU) have found the size and shape of orchids play a big part in their act of sexual deception to get male wasps to pollinate their flowers. Until now it had been thought many orchids need only produce floral scent, or chemicals that mimic female insect sex pheromones, to deceive male insects into pollinating their flowers. But ANU ecologists have discovered orchids mimic how female insects look as well as how they smell. "The orchids exploiting these wasps both have to look good and smell good to ensure that the transfer of pollen is established," Dr Marinus de Jager who was a Visiting Post-Doctoral Fellow at ANU when he completed this study. In the first study of its kind researchers have gone beyond looking at the attraction of smell to investigate the role of flower shape and size in sexually deceptive orchids. Australia is home to most of the world's species of sexually deceptive orchids. These include two different but closely related species of orchid, the broad-lipped bird orchid and the large bird orchid, pollinated by two different species of wasp.