Source Sydney Morning Herald April 11, 2016
Remote Macquarie Island, halfway between New Zealand and Antarctica, has provided scientists with the first glimpse of a world without nectar-seeking birds or bees. And, assuming you're into colourful flowers, it's not pretty.
Rather than vibrant reds, rich purples and bright yellows, Macquarie Island's flowers come in a limited variation of one colour: green.
It's a colour scheme that has evolved not by accident, but by design. On Macquarie Island, flies are the dominant pollinator. And
because flies have a very different colour vision system and preferences to birds and bees, the flora on the sub-Antarctic Island hosts flowers with a distinctive green appearance, unlike any other in the world.RMIT vision scientist Adrian Dyer said the power of the pollinator – flies – had influenced the colour of the flowering plants' blooms.
"To our eye, they are just a pale green colour," he said. "Although to flies, the flowers are probably more of a yellowish colour, as flies have a different visual system. And yellow is their favourite colour."
RMIT ecologist and plant scientist Mani Shrestha said despite a limited colour palette, the flowering plants on the island were diverse, hailing from six plant families found in Australia and New Zealand, including orchids.
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