Across the western Cape of South Africa can be found small plants in the Iris family called Babiana. Flitting between them are sunbirds, small colourful birds like the African version of hummingbirds, ...

Why have some plant species changed pollinators in their evolution? An international team of researchers studied the reproductive systems of three sister species pairs, where one species is pollinated ...

Birds have been visiting and pollinating flowers for at least 47 million years, fossil evidence now suggests. The new find pushes back the onset of ornithophily, or bird pollination, by about 17 ...

Scientists from Oregon State University glued tiny transmitters to hummingbirds in Costa Rica to figure out why plant pollination by birds and insects is crashing around the world. They found that ...

The rest of this article is behind a paywall. Please sign in or subscribe to access the full content. Researchers have discovered the earliest fossil evidence of a bird visiting flowers, presumably to ...

Flowers look beautiful in your yard and they can also attract birds and butterflies. If you want more of the winged creatures ...

Even more surprising was the finding that the birds do not feed on nectar as in most other bird-pollinated plants but consume the male reproductive organs (the stamens) while visiting the flowers. It ...

Flowers used to come with understood meanings. Marigolds were for the jealous and aggrieved; ambrosias a sign of love returned. Dumas fil’s heroine in Camille carried white camellias when in the mood ...

The Canary Islands are home to a guild of endemic, threatened bird pollinated plants. Previous work has suggested that these plants evolved floral traits as adaptations to pollination by flower ...

Today's hummingbirds ferry pollen from blossom to blossom, helping flowering plants reproduce. Their occupational ancestors, however, were birds of a different feather. According to a paper published ...