Great Video

As promised over the next few weeks, I will be talking about some of the great information that I learned at the 22nd Millersville Native Plant Conference.  

The first thing that I am going to share with you is an amazing video that was shown to us by Dr. David Wagner, an entomologist.  The topic was titled: The Tangled Fates of Plants, Caterpillars, and Birds.  He also has a great field guide about Caterpillars Native to the Eastern U.S.  The video is about a comet orchid that was sent to Charles Darwin, and scientists were stumped as to how it was pollinated because of the structure of the flower.  Darwin predicted that a large moth with a really long tongue (over 8") had evolved to pollinate the flower, and get the nectar.  He was ridiculed by his peers and the theory went untested for quite some time.  Check out this video for the full story . It is worth the 4 minutes at some odd seconds that it takes:  http://youtu.be/OMVN1EWxfAU 

Insects have wonderful adaptations.  Check out this image of the Spicebush Swallowtail caterpillar.  This caterpillar looks like a green snake to potential predators instead of a tasty caterpillar, or "hot dog with legs" which may have been one of my favorite quotes of the native plant conference, courtesy of Jim McCormac.

How cool is that?!