Why orchids have evolved sexual mimicry for pollination is open for debate. Plants that are farther away from each other are more likely to be distant relatives, so mimicry may reduce inbreeding.

It is well known that animal-pollinated plants usually offer nectar ... Surprisingly, these orchids are majorly exploited by male bees of Ctenoplectra, not females, over a 6-year field study ...

Yet plants get along in life just fine ... Not so for the poor, deluded orchid bee. In one famous case, putting the final QED on Darwin's proof that evolution had tailored a flower to lure ...

But they were not seen again until this year when staff from Yorkshire Wildlife Trust counted 21 new plants. Originally confined to grassland in southern and south-eastern England, bee orchids ...

Some flowers go to extraordinary lengths to attract pollinators. Bee orchids mimic the shape and scent of bees in order to lure them into ‘pseudocopulation’, where the male insect attempts to mate ...

We now had several orchid plants in one place, increasing our chances of catching one in flower, but we were relying on the plants to attract wild bees. Our scientific consultant, David Roubik ...