Plants learn to manipulate
Other flowers developed alternative bribes to pollen this being nectar, a completely specialized adaptation to recruit even more potential pollination agents which included bees, flies, butterflies and moths. Even brighter signals were used to draw attention to the nectar being offered and attractive scented chemicals evolved as additional means of soliciting the services of insects for pollen transportation. The services of flies were enlisted with the evolution of flowers that mimicked the scent of rotting flesh, the usual food of such animals. Some stepelia plants have taken this deception further by producing brown, wrinkled petals covered with hairs which resemble the decaying skin of a dead animal. To complete the illusion, the plant generates heat to mimic the warmth generated by decomposition of flesh. Flies not only visit and transport the pollen of the stepelia plants, but they even lay their eggs in the flower as if it were carrion.
Stepeliagigantae
