Males exploited for sex: “An Australian orchid has been exposed as a master of sexual deception, luring male wasps by emitting the same heady scent that female wasps use to seduce potential partners.
“It’s an unfair system. They exploit the wasps,’ he said.”
But wait! The orchid’s wicked ways don’t stop there. An Australian experiment has found the deception is actually harmful to the female wasps, whose males reject them in favour of the flowers. One of the researchers “speculates that it will tend to be naive or younger male wasps that are taken in by the orchids.”
Subterfuge. Intrigue. Dangerous liasons. Who said flowers are boring?
POLLENATRIX 