Water lilies and scarabs: faithful partners for 100 million years?

Abstract

Night‐flowering water lilies (Nymphaeaceae) in South America are pollinated by Cyclocephala scarab beetles (Scarabaeidae: Cyclocephalini) in a specialized relationship involving synchronized flowering movements, strong floral scent, food tissues, and heat‐producing flowers. We report that a similar and closely related association exists in West Africa between Nymphaea lotus L. and Ruteloryctes morio Fabricius (Cyclocephalini). This finding strongly supports a late Early Cretaceous origin of a symbiosis between the night‐flowering water lilies and pollinating Cyclocephalini beetles. We believe that this is the first unambiguous evidence of a plant‐pollinator relationship of this age. © 2003 The Linnean Society of London, Biological Journal of the Linnean Society, 2003, 80, 539–543.

Synopsis of the cyclocephaline scarab beetles (Coleoptera, Scarabaeidae, Dynastinae)

“…62). Ruteloryctes morio is a pollinator of nocturnally blooming Nymphaea lotus L., and this floral association has been reported from Côte d’Ivoire, Senegal, and Nigeria (Fabricius 1798, Krell et al 2003, Hirthe and Porembski 2003, Ervik and Knudsen 2003). The immature stages of Ruteloryctes are undescribed.…”

“…Fabricius (1798) reported the earliest floral association record for Cyclocephalini when he noted that Melolontha morio Fabricius (= Ruteloryctes morio ) was found in “ Nympheae floribus ” in “ India orientalis .” This early floral association record was later validated, and R. morio is indeed a pollinator of the water lily, Nymphaea lotus L., in Benin, Côte d’Ivoire, Nigeria, and Senegal (Ervik and Knudsen 2003, Hirthe and Porembski 2003, Krell et al 2003). Linnaeus’ students Leonard Gyllenhal and Carl Peter Thunberg combined to describe four cyclocephaline species later classified in Cyclocephala and Stenocrates (Thunberg 1814, Gyllenhal 1817a, b).…”

“…Ruteloryctes specimens have been collected in Angola, Benin, Cameroon, Chad, Côte d’Ivoire, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone, and The Gambia (Burgeon 1947, Paulian 1954, Endrődi 1960, 1966, 1985a, Krell et al 2003, Hirthe and Porembski 2003, Ervik and Knudsen 2003) (Fig. 62).…”

The Pollination of Mid Mesozoic Seed Plants and the Early History of Long-proboscid Insects1,2,3

“…These modifications to floral structure occur in several basal angiosperm lineages, notably the Nymphaeales and Magnoliales. Entrapment pollination represented in both lineages has been present at least since the latest Early Cretaceous (Ervik & Knudsen, 2003;Gandolfo et al, 2004).…”

A New Female Elytral Character for the Tribe Cyclocephalini (Coleoptera: Scarabaeidae: Dynastinae) and an Observation of its Possible Function

“…Ervik and Knudsen (2003) provide a compelling argument that scarab pollination of the Nymphaeaceae (Nymphales) is a mutualistic relationship that dates to the early Cretaceous. Whether this represents an example of coevolution is unclear, and only one study has addressed this hypothesis (Schiestl and Dötterl 2012).…”