Gongora pollinators in the wild?

[Orkidea]

What pollinates Gongoras in the wild?

[Halloamey]

There are a group of bees called the euglossine bees or the orchid bees that pollinate Catasetinae and Stanhopeinae tribe (Stanhopea, Coryanthes, Gongora etc) of orchids. The male bees try to collect the fragrant oily compounds that the flowers secrete, these oils are what make them attractive to female bees.

Heres a great video which shows these beautiful iridescent bee visiting a Gongora in wild. If you see this video clearly there are pollinia stuck on the back of the second bee that tries to visit the second flower



There is also a nice scientific clip which explains the pollination via some computer animation.

[zainal abidin]

Thanks Amey for the wonderful video I really enjoy it.

[pavel]

Thanks, Amey! While I had known of this relationship between Euglossine bees and some orchids (bees harvesting chemical compounds used for attracting a mate) I had not realized that Gongoras also have this same relationship.

Neat videos -- and on an extraneous note, I really liked the Enya style music used for the second video.

[Brutal_Dreamer]

Excellent videos Amey! The second video was especially informative. Thanks for sharing this with us. Fascinating symbiosis.

cheers,
BD

[Halloamey]

What is fascinating is what all you can find on youtube one must know what and how to search for!

[Orkidea]

Thank you so much Amey for the videos. The pollinators match the coolness of the blossoms on these types of orchids! It's really fascinating how these relationships formed to begin with.