Flowers have developed different strategies to attract pollinators through visual or olfactory signals. Most flowers offer pollinators a reward (e.g. nectar and pollen) for the pollination service. However, one‐third of Orchidaceae have been shown not to provide a reward. Calanthe are terrestrial orchids distributed throughout China, Nepal, Japan and tropical Asia. Despite its high diversity, the pollination biology of Calanthe remains largely unknown, even though it is an important aspect of plant conservation. In the study, through field surveying, there were three Hesperiidae butterflies pollinating two species of Calanthe and the pollination behavior differed between the two species of Calanthe, which might lead to different fruit setting rates. There was no nectar in the flowers of the two species, indicating deceptive pollination. Using a glass cylinder experiment, it was deduced that the two species of Calanthe were most likely to attract pollinators by generalized food deception. Interestingly, Hesperiidae butterflies were traditionally thought to be nectar thieves and generally do not transmit pollinia. However, our findings showed that, in this case, the thieves were deceived by the plants and pollinated them for free.

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These orchids have developed many deceptive methods to attract pollinators, such as sexual deception (Rakosy et al., 2017), generalized food deception (Fantinato et al., 2019; Ma et al., 2016), and simulation of rewarding plants (Benadi & Gegear, 2018; Tsuji et al., 2020). Batesian mimicry is a complicated deceptive pollination strategy involving three or more species. The term was originally applied in animal ecology to indicate a nontoxic, edible species that mimics a toxic, inedible species in form, color, and behavior, thereby obtaining safety benefits (Claudel et al., 2019; Sherratt & Peet-Paré, 2017). Simulation of rewarding plants is equivalent to