Comment by chabes
5 days ago
A lot of plants aren’t pollinated by bees. There’s pollinator wasps, flies, moths, butterflies… even birds and bats are pollinators
5 days ago
A lot of plants aren’t pollinated by bees. There’s pollinator wasps, flies, moths, butterflies… even birds and bats are pollinators
One of those moths is this guy, who (in flight, not so much in still images) looks and sounds like a miniature hummingbird: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hummingbird_hawk-moth
I noticed these for the first time earlier this summer. Incredible insects! They really do give a hummingbird impression.
For many people, it is the other way around. It is very remarkable that there is a bird, which looks so much like a big version of this butterfly!
After all, in Europe these butterflies are commonplace, but I've never seen the American bird in my life.
rare instance where the German name Taubenschwänzchen ('little dove-tail') is nicer than the English name
That reminds me that people who hear the word for butterfly (Schmetterling) in German for the first time usually think it sounds extremely violent. Ok, then again, "butterfly" sounds slightly disgusting if you think about it. But TIL that they actually have a similar root: the "Schmetter-" doesn't come from smashing, but from "Schmetten", a word derived from the Slavic "smetana" (cream). Apparently butterflies got their name from the popular belief that witches could turn into butterflies to steal milk or cream (and probably also other dairy products?).
Finding hawk moth caterpillars on my tomato plant was one of the bigger wtfs of my adult life
Honestly you're lucky there were any leaves left.
You must have caught it within two or three hours after its arrival.
In the US we have similar hawk moths; the tomato hornworm also looks like a hummingbird when it reaches maturity.
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Very common around my mom's house.
I have to say that if we're also talking about wild grasses, my wire fox terrier is also a pollinator. He collects an incredible amount of seeds and burrs during his walkies investigations and I have to pick them out of his fur afterwards (risky because he gets annoyed easily).
Seeds are not gametes. While your dog may help spread the seeds, they are not assisting in the sexual reproduction itself.
If you push me into a bush then you'll make me a pollinator as well
mosquitoes too, though it pains me to give them credit for anything
True, all mosquitoes drink nectar, and only females of some species drink blood.
and some species' females require a blood meal before laying eggs :(
And... wolves?
https://esajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ecy....
And by wind. The major staple crops are all wind pollinated.
And olive trees have genders, with the male pollinating the surrounding females.
That's pretty common in plants: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dioecy
My pawpaws (Asimina triloba) mainly need (house) flies to pollinate. They make their flowers look like meat.
I have a couple 100 foot rows of them, it's tricky to get good pollination.
My grandpappy told me that if you want a good crop of pawpaws you have to hang a dead cat in the tree. I think dead cats were in greater supply back in his day.
Fascinating flowers for a tree though. Red meat color and odor only a fly could love.
For anyone that’s close, go to the upcoming Ohio Pawpaw festival! https://ohiopawpawfest.com/
Yeah I've wondered about just really nasty ass stinky fresh manure around the base of each tree. That would attract flies.
Probably a flush of nitrogen at exactly the wrong time tho. Most plants respond to that by pushing excess green growth instead of flowering and fruit set.
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You grow these commercially? Always wondering where I can buy good quality ones when they're in season (in NYC area)
Email me and I can connect you with some. There is a FB group for folks growing them in the NYC area, plus a list of all the parks where they are planted.
No, from those trees we basically only get enough for personal consumption because fruit bearing (so far) is so unreliable.
Also, southern Ontario.
the little beetle that could, and pawpaw's are self-incompatible. -https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asimina_triloba#Pollination
plenty of sap beetles around here, but i don't tend to see them on my pawpaws. they come around later season when my raspberries ripen
would not rule out the cash crop farming on both sides of me from doing a number on the insects, though i seem to have plenty overall.
unfortunately an excessive number of japanese beetles
Ants as well
Yeah I was about to say ants with passion fruit flowers.
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