columbines

This is the fourth of eight posts on evolutionary research to celebrate Darwin's bicentennial. Charles Darwin was a visionary in more ways than one. In 1862, Darwin was studying a Malagasy orchid called Angraecum sesquipedale, whose nectar stores lie inaccessibly at the bottom of a 30cm long spur (tube). Darwin predicted that the flower was pollinated by a moth with tongue long enough to raid the spur. Few people believed him, but in 1903, zoologists discovered Darwin's predicted moth, Xanthopan morgani praedicta, and it did indeed have a very long tongue. Darwin accurately predicted the…