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In plants, the female flowers mimic male flowers of their own species, cheating pollinators out of a reward. This reproductive mimicry may not be readily apparent as members of the same species may still exhibit some degree of sexual dimorphism , i.e. the phenotypic difference between males and females of the same species.
Pouyannian mimicry is a form of mimicry in plants that deceives an insect into attempting to copulate with a flower. The flower mimics a potential female mate of a male insect, which then serves the plant as a pollinator. The mechanism is named after the French lawyer and amateur botanist Maurice-Alexandre Pouyanne.
The flower mantises include the orchid mantis, Hymenopus coronatus, which mimics a rainforest orchid of southeast Asia to lure its prey, pollinator insects. [1]Flower mantises are praying mantises that use a special form of camouflage referred to as aggressive mimicry, which they not only use to attract prey, but avoid predators as well.
Interspecific sexual mimicry can also occur in some plant species, especially orchids. In plants employing sexual mimicry, flowers mimic mating signals of their pollinator insects. These insects are attracted and pollinate the flowers through pseudocopulations or other sexual behaviors performed on the flower.
Bakerian mimicry, named after Herbert G. Baker, [84] is a form of automimicry where female flowers mimic male flowers of their own species, cheating pollinators out of a reward. This reproductive mimicry may not be readily apparent as members of the same species may still exhibit some degree of sexual dimorphism .
The color or odor of flowers promotes this isolation as plants effectively manipulate the behavior of their animal pollinators. An example of this type of manipulation is found in orchids as they mimic female bees and wasps in order to attract male pollinators as a form of sexual deception referred to as pseudocopulation. [2]
Pseudocopulation by an insect on a flower is a result of Pouyannian mimicry, named after the French lawyer and amateur botanist Maurice-Alexandre Pouyanne. . [1] [2] This occurs in several orchids, whose flowers mimic the female mating signals of specific pollinator insects, such as bees. [3]
In addition to chemosensory mimicry, the labellum of the flower acts as a visual decoy that the male bee confuses for a female. [16] It is believed that male bees preferentially select orchids with the most bee-like labellum and attempt copulation, at which point the pollinia stick to the bee during the pseudocopulation .