In a new study, an international team of plant researchers including the Institute of Botany at TU Dresden has discovered an unusual and previously unknown reproductive strategy in plants: the Greek pipevine species Aristolochia microstoma produces a unique mixture of volatiles that resembles the smell of dead and decaying insects to attract the pollinating fly genus Megaselia (also known as coffin flies ) to its trap-flowers. The study was recently published in the open-access journal Frontiers .
This Unique Flower Smells Like Dead Insects to Attract And Trap Coffin Flies
23 MAY 2021
Not all flowers smell like roses. An unusual plant in Greece gives off the scent of decaying insects, probably as a way to attract and trap coffin flies (
Megaselia scalaris).
The stinky flower is called
Aristolochia microstoma, and according to scientists, it s the first known case of a plant that reeks of dead invertebrates to spread its pollen.
Coffin flies, as their name suggests, seek out decaying matter in which they can lay their eggs, thus providing food for the hatched larvae. This usually means a vertebrate corpse or feces.
Frontiers
The plant Aristolochia microstoma uses a unique trick: its flowers emit a fetid-musty scent that seems to mimic the smell of decomposing insects. Flies from the genus Megaselia (family Phoridae) likely get attracted to this smell while searching for insect corpses to mate over and lay their eggs in. When they enter a flower, they are imprisoned and first pollinate the female organs, before being covered with pollen by the male organs. The flower then releases them unharmed.
“Here we show that the flowers of A. microstoma emit an unusual mix of volatiles that includes alkylpyrazines, which are otherwise rarely produced by flowering plants. Our results suggest that this is the first known case of a flower that tricks pollinators by smelling like dead and rotting insects rather than vertebrate carrion,” says corresponding author Prof Stefan Dötterl, the head of plant ecology group and the Botanical Gardens at the Paris-Lodron University of Salzburg, Austria. The study i
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