Beginners Guide to Pollinators and Other Flower Visitors

By Beatriz Moisset

An illustrated beginner's field guide to insect flower visitors, including pollinators. The guide provides concise descriptions, photos and life history information of the most common insects found visiting flowers. It includes time of year, geographic area and favorite flowers. Also mentioned are those that act as pollinators and whether they may sting.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Apr 1, 2013
• ISBN: 9781300824534

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Beginners Guide to Pollinators and Other Flower Visitors

Beginners Guide to Pollinators and Other Flower Visitors

Beatriz Moisset

Copyright Beatriz Moisset

All images by Beatriz Moisset, except when indicated

Dedication

To my friend and editor Lorraine Anton

With whom I take long walks through meadows and forests

Acknowledgements

I wish to express my gratitude to my friend, Lorraine Anton, and my son, Steven M. Peters, for their editorial assistance. Lorraine also acted as a sounding board that helped me smooth out wrinkles and knotty problems.

Several naturalists provided invaluable feedback, among them: Mark Fallon, senior naturalist, and Ehren Gross, environmental educator, at Briar Bush Nature Center, and Marlin Corn, naturalist at Churchville Nature Center. I am indebted to all of them.

Foreword

Why do plants have flowers? For the most part they are beautiful and we enjoy them.  But plants don't care whether we like them or not. There must be another reason that plants put so much effort into developing attractive flowers. Some sunny warm day in spring or summer make yourself comfortable and sit next to a lovely bed of full blooming flowers. Plan to stay for a while to watch what is happening there. You will see something amazing. Insects love them! They fly in and around the flowers; they climb inside them; they spend time as though they are searching. Some insects wallow in the sweet sticky nectar or pollen; some carry it away. Then, we begin to realize that flowers have at least one very important function: to help pollinate the plants.

Over many years my biologist friend Beatriz Moisset and I have walked and talked among the lovely gardens and woodlands near our homes. While we walked Beatriz would show me various pollinators, and tell me of their importance. Many others have been privileged to learn about pollinators either on walks with her, or by attending her lively talks and slide shows at our local nature centers. Beatriz is passionate about her subject and she is spreading important news!

Now Beatriz has produced a guide about pollinators for beginners. It is illustrated with her beautiful photographs, accompanied by precise and clearly written descriptions of flower visitors and the fascinating ways in which they help plants propagate.

Lorraine Anton, Friend

Photo

Introduction

Flowers are visited by a great variety of insects. Some of these insect visitors are very beneficial to the flower. They carry pollen from flower to flower performing pollination. This is what the plant needs to make seeds and thus make new plants and new flowers. Some plants are pollinated by the wind, but many others need the help of these pollinators and they use flowers to attract them with their perfume, colors, pollen and nectar.

Not all insect flower visitors are pollinators. Some may even eat the pollinators or the flowers themselves.

In addition to insects there are other flower visitors: spiders, mites, even birds and bats. Some are pollinators, others are just visitors. These will not be included in the guide.

The list of insect flower visitors is extremely long. Some of them are impossible to tell apart by sight only. This guide will highlight the most common or more recognizable ones, with a special focus on pollinators. It will help you to identify the most familiar ones.

What do pollinators look like?

Insects have three body sections, called head, thorax and abdomen. The head carries the eyes, the mouth parts and antennae. The thorax is made of three segments and carries three pairs of legs and, in most cases, either two pairs or only one pair