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SignificanceThe coeveolution of flowers and pollinators is well known, but how generalist pollinators identify suitable flowers across environments and flower species is not well understood. Hoverflies, which are found across the globe, are one of the most important alternative pollinators after bees and bumblebees. Here we measured, predicted, and finally recreated multimodal cues from individual flowers visited by hoverflies in three different environments (hemiboreal, alpine, and tropical). We found that although “flower signatures” were unique for each environment, some cues were ubiquitously attractive, despite not resembling cue combinations from real flowers. Our results provide unique insights into how a cosmopolitan pollinator identifies flower objects across environments, which has important implications for our understanding of pollination as a global ecological service.

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