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08-30-2007, 12:45 AM
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Fossil Orchid shows Orchids are ancient.
The following link is a short reporting on a fossil of a bee found within an orchid that is 80 million years old. This places the orchid before the extinction of the dinosaures 65 million years ago. WoW!! Read for yourselves.
Orchid fossil quells evolutionary quarrel - Yahoo! News
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08-30-2007, 01:03 PM
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Very cool article! 
Thanks for sharing Tindo   |
08-30-2007, 06:07 PM
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Cool article! Thanks so much for sharingTindomul1of9. I understand that the bee was trapped some 15-20 million years ago. This is not much different of what I read some time ago (don't remember where I saved the article, but I have it!) about a possible orchid fossil found in Europe having 15 million years.
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08-30-2007, 06:24 PM
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What I find most interesting is that orchids have survived many worldwide climate changes including the end of the Cretaceous period and the dinosaurs 65 million years ago. They are much more resilient and more evolved than previous believed over 80 million years!
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08-30-2007, 07:01 PM
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See .. so it isn't that easy to kill them 
(  I wonder if that will generate orchid  stories?) |
08-30-2007, 09:19 PM
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80 million years ago, I wonder what it looked like! Apparently the bee liked it. Thanks Tin that is awesome  |
08-30-2007, 09:35 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Phantasm
What I find most interesting is that orchids have survived many worldwide climate changes ...
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Agree with you Phantasm. It is more than interesting. The secret is not to be endemic, but epidemic! Being everywhere is a good way of avoiding extinction! |
08-30-2007, 09:42 PM
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Great article, Tin!
Thanks for sharing it with us  |
08-31-2007, 01:15 AM
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Glad you all liked it. I will be receiving a copy of the original article in Nature, so I will let you know more then.
I am under the impression that the orchid found in the amber is actually still an extant (living) species.
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"We must not look at goblin men,
We must not buy their fruits:
Who knows upon what soil they fed
Their hungry thirsty roots?"
Goblin Market
by Christina Georgina Rossetti
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08-31-2007, 01:05 PM
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One article I read mentioned that the pollen was from a plant representative of "the extant subtribe Goodyerinae (subfamily Orchidoideae)". Evidently this subtribe has not shown a lot of evolutionary changes over millions of years, especially compared to most plants in Orchidacea.
The members of Goodyerianae are mentioned here:
Subtribe : GOODYERINAE | Orchids Online
Perhaps the pollen from 15-20 million years ago still lives on in today's plants, but it would be pretty difficult to nail it down. The bee itself is extinct..... |
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