[HN Gopher] Proboscis, pollen, and the rapture of interspecies i...
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       Proboscis, pollen, and the rapture of interspecies intimacy
        
       Author : dnetesn
       Score  : 28 points
       Date   : 2023-10-05 22:19 UTC (3 days ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (worldsensorium.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (worldsensorium.com)
        
       | tigerlily wrote:
       | I caught a bumblebee rolling around in a big red rose once. You'd
       | think the creature was normally down to business, flitting from
       | flower to flower, dutifully pollenating. I've no other way to
       | describe it, this one was rolling around in that rose like a
       | wire-haired terrier in stray fish guts.
        
         | gumby wrote:
         | Bees pollinate as a side effect of their travels, which are
         | (from the bee's PoV), intended to collect the energy-rich
         | pollen so the hive can make food.
         | 
         | I assume it was trying to collect as much pollen as possible
         | via its hairy body.
         | 
         | This is why those same flowers turn into yummy fruit, so other
         | (like us) will eat them and drop or excrete the seeds
         | elsewhere.
        
           | ianlevesque wrote:
           | They have also been shown to (probably) play for no purpose
           | at all: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S00
           | 0334722...
        
             | gumby wrote:
             | Nice!
        
       | gumby wrote:
       | A whole article on this topic without the word "symbiosis"?
        
       | _a_a_a_ wrote:
       | Very blathery, seems to have been written by an artist rather
       | than a scientist.
       | 
       | Relevant part is this "One place to start [assisting pollination]
       | is finding opportunities to encourage and facilitate the
       | relationships between plants and their endemic pollinator
       | partners. To that end, The Pollinator Partnership has developed a
       | comprehensive series of free planting guides tailored to the
       | swathe of individual ecoregions found throughout the US and
       | Canada. To access these guides, you simply enter your postal code
       | into their system and it will generate the corresponding document
       | containing specific recommendations and practices to help you
       | support plant-pollinator partnerships in your immediate area."
        
         | firewolf34 wrote:
         | While I agree it was likely written by someone with creative
         | tendencies, I quite enjoyed their writing style, it's tone made
         | me smile, appreciate nature a bit, and proceed to the guide. As
         | someone who spends far too much time reading arxiv posts on
         | this site, it is sometimes nice to have a change of pace,
         | furthermore, nearly all of the articles I've seen on this
         | website thus far appear to be well-written.
        
       ___________________________________________________________________
       (page generated 2023-10-08 23:01 UTC)