Lorena Endara^1,2,5, David A. Grimaldi³ & Bitty A. Roy⁴

¹Florida Museum of Natural History, University of Florida, P.O. Box 17800. Gainesville, Florida 32611, U.S.A.

²Department of Botany, University of Florida, 220 Bartram Hall, Gainesville, Florida 32611, U.S.A.

³Division of Invertebrate Zoology, American Museum of Natural History, Central Park West at 79th St. New York, N.Y. 1002426, U.S.A.

⁴Center for Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Oregon, Eugene, Oregon 97403

⁵Author for correspondence: lendara@flmnh.ufl.edu

Abstract. The labellum of Dracula orchids looks and smells like mushrooms, and biologists have long hypothesized mushroom mimicry in which mushroom-associated (mycophilous) flies accidentally pollinate these flowers while laying their eggs. In the cloud forest of Ecuador, we observed flower morphology, pollinators and the mechanisms of pollination in two species, Dracula lafleurii Luer & Dalström and D. felix (Luer) Luer. The orchids are visited and pollinated by drosophilid mycophilous flies of the genus Zygothrica, which normally complete part of their life cycles on mushrooms. While these flies court and mate in the flowers, and in the process, pollinate them, they apparently do not lay their eggs in the flowers. The pollination mechanism of Dracula occurs when pollinators’ thoraces are trapped by the incurved flaps of the rostellum which creates an angle between the scutellum and the abdomen for theremoval and deposition of the pollinia, a novel feature previously not describe in orchids.

Key words: cloud forest, fly pollination; mycophilous; odor; pollinator behavior; Zygothrica

Full text: PDF [4.39 MB]