Scientific evidence shows that almost all of the earliest angiosperms (flowering plants) were pollinated by insects. Whether such a relationship existed between insects and early gymnosperm species ...

A wide range of plant species rely on insects for pollination, but the diversity of these insect-pollinated plants have decreased dramatically in recent decades Wild flowers are essential to bees and ...

Using a mobile stamen to slap away insect visitors maximizes pollination and minimizes costs to flowers, a study shows. For centuries scientists have observed that when a visiting insect's tongue ...

Researchers report a beetle preserved in Burmese amber that suggests early evidence of insect pollination of flowering plants. Insects are thought to have pollinated flowering plants during the ...

Researchers have discovered that plants benefit from a greater variety of interactions with pollinators and herbivores. Plants that are pollinated by insects and have to defend themselves against ...

If evolutionary biologists are the detectives of the natural world’s past mysteries, then the phylogenic tree is their version of a cork board of crime-scene suspects linked together with red string ...

Colorful flowers, and the insects and birds that fly among their dazzling displays, are a joy of nature. But how did early relationships between flower color and animal pollinators emerge? In a study ...

Ruby E. Stephens receives funding from the Australian Government's Research Training Program. Hervé Sauquet receives funding from the Australian Research Council and Australian Research Data Commons.

An obscure group of scorpionflies with specialized mouthparts may have pollinated ancient plants millions of years before flowers evolved, a new study suggests. Fossils indicate that before flowers ...

Before there were flowers, pollination of plants by insects was likely rare, and scientists had no idea of the insect culprits. But a new discovery suggests at least one flittering pollinator. Strange ...

For centuries scientists have observed that when a visiting insect's tongue touches the nectar-producing parts of certain flowers, the pollen-containing stamen snaps forward. The new study proves that ...