ABSTRACT
Although Sprengel, writing in 1793, may not have recognized the evolutionary implications of his life’s work on plant-pollinator interactions, he was among the first to relate the morphological features of flowering plants to those of nectar-feeding animals. Indeed, the early evolution and diversification of angiosperms have
frequently been attributed to an “arrangement” between plants and their pollinators, but how “admirable” such relationships often are remains questionable [2]. Darwin postulated that extended corollas of certain flowers represent the outcome of an evolutionary arms race between plants and their pollinators [3], with plants evolving to match, in depth, mouthpart lengths of pollinating taxa [4-7]. Consequently, the rise of flowering plants in the late Cretaceous also corresponded with a period of rapid diversification in insect feeding strategies, including the evolution of the famously elongate mouthparts associated with nectar feeding in certain Lepidoptera, Diptera, and Hymenoptera [8,9].
