How do bee orchids attract male bees?

By looking and smelling like female bees

What does a bucket orchid do to visiting bees?

Drops them into liquid and makes them exit through a tunnel

Why is vanilla often pollinated by hand?

Its natural bee pollinators live only in its native region

How large is the orchid family?

One of the largest flowering plant families

Orchid Pollination Quiz: Deceptive Flowers and Fooled Bees

This orchid pollination quiz reveals the clever and sneaky ways orchids get insects to carry their pollen. Play 10 interactive questions on bee orchids that mimic females, pollinia, Darwin's long-spurred orchid and its predicted moth, bucket orchids that trap bees, vanilla hand pollination and food deception.

Start Orchid Pollination Quiz

🎯 Daily Trivia Challenge • 🧠 10 Questions • ⏱️ 150 Seconds

Question 1 / 10 Time: 150s

Pollinia
How is orchid pollen often packaged?
Bee
How do bee orchids attract male bees?
Term
What is that mating trick called?
Darwin
What did Darwin predict from a Madagascar orchid's long spur?
Moth
When was the predicted moth formally named?
Bucket
What does a bucket orchid do to visiting bees?
No reward
About what share of orchids offer pollinators no reward?
Vanilla
Why is vanilla often pollinated by hand?
Albius
Who invented the quick hand method for vanilla?
Family
How large is the orchid family?

Explanations: answer key for all 10 questions

Q1: How is orchid pollen often packaged?
Answer: In sticky packets called pollinia
Whole packets stick to insects.
Q2: How do bee orchids attract male bees?
Answer: By looking and smelling like female bees
Males try to mate with the flower.
Q3: What is that mating trick called?
Answer: Pseudocopulation
The male carries pollen away.
Q4: What did Darwin predict from a Madagascar orchid's long spur?
Answer: A moth with a very long tongue
He made the prediction in 1862.
Q5: When was the predicted moth formally named?
Answer: 1903
Its name includes praedicta.
Q6: What does a bucket orchid do to visiting bees?
Answer: Drops them into liquid and makes them exit through a tunnel
Pollen is attached on the way out.
Q7: About what share of orchids offer pollinators no reward?
Answer: About a third
They rely on deception.
Q8: Why is vanilla often pollinated by hand?
Answer: Its natural bee pollinators live only in its native region
It is native to Mexico.
Q9: Who invented the quick hand method for vanilla?
Answer: Edmond Albius
He was a 12-year-old boy on Reunion in 1841.
Q10: How large is the orchid family?
Answer: One of the largest flowering plant families
It has tens of thousands of species.

Orchid Pollination Quiz – Deceptive Flowers and Fooled Bees

Orchids package their pollen in sticky packets called pollinia, which attach whole to visiting insects. Many orchids offer nectar, but about a third offer nothing and rely on tricks.

Bee orchids look and smell like female bees, so males try to mate with them and carry pollen away. Bucket orchids drop bees into liquid and let them escape only through a tunnel that fixes pollen to their backs.

In 1862 Darwin predicted that a Madagascar orchid with a very long spur needed a moth with an equally long tongue, and the moth was named in 1903. Vanilla is usually pollinated by hand, using a method found by Edmond Albius in 1841.

What This Quiz Teaches

Plant fans will enjoy these questions.

How orchid pollen travels
How bee orchids trick insects
What Darwin predicted
How bucket orchids work
Why vanilla needs hands

Did You Know?

Some orchids smell like rotting meat to attract flies.
Orchid seeds are as fine as dust.
Orchid seeds need fungi to sprout.
Orchids grow on every continent except Antarctica.
Moth orchids are popular houseplants.