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Posted: 27 May 2023

Taken: 26 May 2023

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THE REASON FOR FLOWERS' •
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Hawk Moth of Madagascar

Hawk Moth of Madagascar
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 Dinesh
Dinesh club
In 1862 naturalist Charles Darwin (1809-82) made a famous prediction about a special duo, a flower and its moth. Growing as newly grown curiosities at Kew Garden near london and in the greenhouses of Victorrian elite plant collectors were magnificent new arrival from Madagascar, including the star of comet orchid (Angraecum sesquipedale) and other fanciful blooms. Darwin was a serious student of orchids. He was sent a live plant by the great orchid collector James Bateman (1811-97) before 1862. Darwin examined the big, waxy-whitish flower and noted it had a long spur that contained a few drops of nectar within its tip. That nectar tube was nearly a foot long. In a letter to Joseph Hooker (then director of the botanical gardens at Kew,) Darwin remarked, “I have just received such a Box full from Mr. Bateman with the astonishing Angraecum sesquipedale with a nectary a foot long – Good Heavens was what insect can suck it.” Darwin predicted that there must be an insect, which a hawk moth, with a great proboscis, long enough to reach far into the depths of the spur to extract nectar, somewhere undiscovered on the island of Madagascar,. The problem was that no such long-tongued insect, moth, or even visitor has ever been found in Madagascar, and especially not at star orchid blooms in the wild.

Sure enough, after his death and more than twenty years after Darwin originally mae the prediction, a large hawk moth (Xanthopan morganit praedicta) was discovered in Madagascar. Latin scholars and etymologists will not the subspecies ‘praedicta’ in the moth’s name. Science requiring extensive and costly fieldwork takes a lot of time. . . . . Page 62
11 months ago. Edited 11 months ago.
 Dinesh
Dinesh club
THE REASON FOR FLOWERS
11 months ago.

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