Darwin’s orchid  (Angraecum sesquipedale)

Biology

When Charles Darwin received a flowering specimen of Angraecum sesquipedale, he speculated that the plant most be pollinated by a gigantic moth, with an enormous proboscis capable of accessing the nectar collected in the bottom of the long spurs. However, at the time, no such moth was known to science, and so many treated Darwin’s prediction with disbelief and ridicule (3) (4) (6). Darwin’s vindication arrived posthumously, when a hawk moth (Xanthopan morganii praedicta) from Madagascar was discovered in 1903 with a proboscis just long enough to access the nectar (3). Although the relationship between Xanthopan morganii praedicta and Darwin’s orchid has since become a classic example of coevolution, to this day, it has yet to be verified in the field (8).

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