Pollination Image (IMAGE)

Queen Mary University of London

Pollination Image

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Dr. Elizabeth McCarthy, who carried out the work as part of her Ph.D. at QMUL but who is now at University of California Riverside, said: "Some plants evolve increasingly specialised relationships with the species that pollinate them. A classic example is Darwin's Madagascan orchid, first discovered in 1798. Its exceptionally long nectar spur led Charles Darwin to propose that it was pollinated by a moth whose proboscis -- the organ that extracts the nectar -- was longer than that of any moth known at the time. Darwin's prediction was spectacularly verified 21 years after his death when just such a moth was discovered."

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Ninad Thakoor

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Credit: Ninad Thakoor

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