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Grass Pink Orchid & wasp mimic

Posted on Jun 17, 2014

Pollinator? Not quite. This is a flower fly of the family Syrphidae sitting on the fake anthers of a Grass Pink Orchid (Calopogon tuberosus var. tuberosus). Orchids have specialized pollinia and don’t have anthers with pollen, like most other flowers. This is a nice case of a trickster (wasp mimic) being tricked…

Grass pink and flower fly