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Comment by chabes | Hacker News Reader

A lot of plants aren’t pollinated by bees. There’s pollinator wasps, flies, moths, butterflies… even birds and bats are pollinators

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One of those moths is this guy, who (in flight, not so much in still images) looks and sounds like a miniature hummingbird: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hummingbird_hawk-moth

I noticed these for the first time earlier this summer. Incredible insects! They really do give a hummingbird impression.

https://satwcomic.com/two-birds-in-the-hand

Very common around my mom's house.

rare instance where the German name Taubenschwänzchen ('little dove-tail') is nicer than the English name

That reminds me that people who hear the word for butterfly (Schmetterling) in German for the first time usually think it sounds extremely violent. Ok, then again, "butterfly" sounds slightly disgusting if you think about it. But TIL that they actually have a similar root: the "Schmetter-" doesn't come from smashing, but from "Schmetten", a word derived from the Slavic "smetana" (cream). Apparently butterflies got their name from the popular belief that witches could turn into butterflies to steal milk or cream (and probably also other dairy products?).

For many people, it is the other way around. It is very remarkable that there is a bird, which looks so much like a big version of this butterfly!

After all, in Europe these butterflies are commonplace, but I've never seen the American bird in my life.

Finding hawk moth caterpillars on my tomato plant was one of the bigger wtfs of my adult life

Honestly you're lucky there were any leaves left.

You must have caught it within two or three hours after its arrival.

In the US we have similar hawk moths; the tomato hornworm also looks like a hummingbird when it reaches maturity.

Once I started leaving just the ones with parasitoid wasp eggs on their backs in the garden, I completely stopped having problems with these guys.

The "hornworm" caterpillars leave amazing poops behind. They look like (not so) little green grenades.

Their moths are important pollinators of some nice native flowers.

When I noticed them they were covered in wasp pupae, so maybe that slowed them down.

I'm in the Eastern US, btw.

Never understood why they are called hummingbirds. They sound more like squeekingbirds to me.

My pawpaws (Asimina triloba) mainly need (house) flies to pollinate. They make their flowers look like meat.

I have a couple 100 foot rows of them, it's tricky to get good pollination.

the little beetle that could, and pawpaw's are self-incompatible. -https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asimina_triloba#Pollination

plenty of sap beetles around here, but i don't tend to see them on my pawpaws. they come around later season when my raspberries ripen

would not rule out the cash crop farming on both sides of me from doing a number on the insects, though i seem to have plenty overall.

unfortunately an excessive number of japanese beetles

My grandpappy told me that if you want a good crop of pawpaws you have to hang a dead cat in the tree. I think dead cats were in greater supply back in his day.

Fascinating flowers for a tree though. Red meat color and odor only a fly could love.

For anyone that’s close, go to the upcoming Ohio Pawpaw festival! https://ohiopawpawfest.com/

Yeah I've wondered about just really nasty ass stinky fresh manure around the base of each tree. That would attract flies.

Probably a flush of nitrogen at exactly the wrong time tho. Most plants respond to that by pushing excess green growth instead of flowering and fruit set.

Solid cow manure is really low in nitrogen, though, and maybe 90% is organic N which is released slowly.

Maybe you meant fresher manure.

Whatever brings the most flies to the yard.

The farm next door occasionally grows cauliflower. Like 15 acres of it. When that happens and they do the harvest in the end of August the whole area stinks like rotting brassicas and there's flies everywhere. If I could just replicate that experience in mid-May...

You grow these commercially? Always wondering where I can buy good quality ones when they're in season (in NYC area)

No, from those trees we basically only get enough for personal consumption because fruit bearing (so far) is so unreliable.

Also, southern Ontario.

Email me and I can connect you with some. There is a FB group for folks growing them in the NYC area, plus a list of all the parks where they are planted.

they are interesting plants, not many people cultivate them though, what do you do with the fruit? I hear it spoils fast and is not very marketable because of its lack of shelf life.

edit: Just saw your reply to the other guy, actually I'm in Ontario, any chance I can get a fruit or two :) ? I've been wanting to try it

Yeah, you can't really sell it in market as it bruises easily and spoils quickly.

We're in our 7th or 8th year on these trees and only get a dozen or so fruits despite it being quite a few trees. Last year we got none because of heavy rains during pollination time. I've planted more but it will take another 5 years before they do anything.

There are people on FB marketplace who offer them around October when they ripen, keep an eye out.

I will try to check later in the year! I planted a few of my own actually, but considering they are still saplings, it will take some time before i get any fruit myself. I also managed to find some at a park nearby, but I don't think those are producing anything either.

If they're not grafted varieties, it can take 10 years to get any fruit at all. And it's recommended to get multiple different types for pollination to be more successful.

Recommended for Ontario: https://www.grimonut.com/ (NoTL area)

Bare root seedlings that you'd plant in the spring. Though it is not clear to me if what they're selling are grafted or not, I've never been 100%.

the ones I have are from https://onplants.ca/shop/asimina-triloba/ They claim to be grown from seed and so should be viable for producing fruit (as long as you have multiple plants). We will see in multiple years time how they do. The ones on the site you linked seem to be grown from seed as well, and seem to offer 100-180cm sized seedlings, I'm guessing those are 2 maybe 3 years old, mine are much smaller, about 50cms. Probably a better place to purchase from if you don't want to wait so long to mature them!

And... wolves?

https://esajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ecy....

mosquitoes too, though it pains me to give them credit for anything

True, all mosquitoes drink nectar, and only females of some species drink blood.

and some species' females require a blood meal before laying eggs :(

I have to say that if we're also talking about wild grasses, my wire fox terrier is also a pollinator. He collects an incredible amount of seeds and burrs during his walkies investigations and I have to pick them out of his fur afterwards (risky because he gets annoyed easily).

Seeds are not gametes. While your dog may help spread the seeds, they are not assisting in the sexual reproduction itself.

And olive trees have genders, with the male pollinating the surrounding females.

That's pretty common in plants: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dioecy

If you push me into a bush then you'll make me a pollinator as well

And by wind. The major staple crops are all wind pollinated.

Ants as well

Yeah I was about to say ants with passion fruit flowers.

We've got a fly-pollinated bush in our yard. Smells like rotting death when it's wet to attract them. (I did not plant it...)

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