- Scientists from Madagascar, the U.S. and Europe have described a new orchid species from the forests of central Madagascar, which has a record-breaking long nectar spur relative to its small flower size.
- The orchid is pollinated by a species of hawkmoth with a very long tongue, similar to Darwin’s orchid, which was predicted to exist by Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace in the 1800s.
- Habitat of the newly described orchid species is threatened deforestation and mining activities, especially from the Ambatovy nickel and cobalt mine nearby, though Ambatovy is funding conservation actions to protect the species.
- Madagascar’s unique biodiversity, including many species found nowhere else on Earth, is under serious threat from rapid deforestation driven by agriculture, fires and mining.
Scientists from Madagascar, the U.S. and Europe have described a new orchid species found up in the forest canopies of central Madagascar.
The orchid, named Solenangis impraedicta, boasts a nectar spur that reaches 33 centimeters (13 inches) in length, making it the longest of any known plant relative to its flower size. (The flowers are just 2 cm, or three-quarters of an inch, long.)
The nectar in this long spur is likely accessible only to long-tongued hawkmoths. As they sip the nectar, pollen from the flower is transferred onto their body, facilitating the pollination of the orchid species.
The new species, described in a paper in Current Biology, represents the first orchid species with such extreme adaptations to hawkmoth pollination to be described since 1965.
“Discovering a new orchid species is always an exciting event, but finding such amazing and charismatic species happens only once in a scientist’s career,” said Tariq Stévart, director of the Missouri Botanical Garden’s Africa and Madagascar program.
The find is exciting to researchers because of its similarities to the so-called Darwin’s orchid (Angraecum sesquipedale), also endemic to Madagascar. After examining the long nectar spur of A. sesquipedale in 1862, Darwin speculated that it would take a moth with an exceptionally long proboscis to reach the nectar.
His fellow pioneer in the theory of evolution, Alfred Russel Wallace, in 1867 narrowed down the prediction to a hawkmoth, and this theory was validated in 1903 when just such a hawkmoth was found feasting on the flower. (Originally named Xanthopan morganii praedicta because it was thought to be a subspecies of a moth found on the African mainland, the Madagascar hawkmoth was in 2021 elevated to a species of its own, Xanthopan praedicta.)
“The contrast between the little 2-cm flowers and the hyper-long nectar tube is mind-blowing,” said João Farminhão, a co-author of the new paper and researcher at the University of Coimbra Botanic Garden in Portugal.
Scientists found the remarkable new orchids in the humid forests where Uapaca and Syzygium trees grow. However, the exact location is being kept secret. “Wild populations must be protected and monitored, and detailed information on their precise coordinates must be kept out of the public domain. So, don’t ask us to reveal where we found it, somewhere in Madagascar,” Stévart said.
The new orchid species was first collected nearly 15 years ago by Patrice Antilahimena, a Missouri Botanical Garden field botanist, during an environmental impact study for a mining operation. It was found growing high up in a tree, just 100 meters (330 feet) from the mining footprint, or the area the mining company intended to clear to build its mine.
“This species is highly threatened by mining activities,” Stévart said.
Specifically, its threatened by the Ambatovy mine, an open-pit nickel and cobalt operation that supplies minerals for products like electric car batteries,
The multibillion-dollar mine, owned by Japan’s Sumitomo Corporation and the Korea Mine Rehabilitation and Mineral Resources Corporation, began operating in 2014 and is the largest foreign investment in Madagascar.
Stévart said scientists approached Ambatovy as soon as they confirmed they had found a rare, possibly new-to-science orchid species very near the mining footprint.
“We let [the company] know that this was a big responsibility,” Stévart said “We said once this is published everyone will know the species and will know you.”
In response, Stévart said, the company agreed to start a dedicated conservation program in which it would monitor the orchid species for five years, grow the orchid in a living collection and preserve it in a seed bank.
Ten years later after the first orchid was found, botanists Brigitte Ramandimbisoa and Simon Verlynde found the species in a new location outside the mining site, in an area of forest that Ambatovy has set aside for conservation.
To make up for biodiversity loss in its 1,800-hectare (4,450-acre) mining site, Ambatovy has also created offset sites, or areas where it can protect forests elsewhere to make up for forest loss related to mining development.
According to an independent analysis, this strategy means the Ambatovy mining operation has achieved no net forest loss. However, offsets are controversial. Some experts say there isn’t enough data to determine how these offsets have impacted biodiversity and that creating protected areas blocks impoverished communities from accessing forest resources they depend on.
The orchid is a good example of an umbrella species, Stévart said: By protecting it, we also protect some of the other species that live around the long-spurred flower.
“I feel confident that the species will not disappear if they continue to support all these conservation actions,” Stévart said. However, he added, “I really hope this species will help to draw people’s attention to Madagascar and to the current situation, which is not good.”
Millions of years of isolation have given rise to an extraordinary array of species in Madagascar that are found nowhere else on Earth. In just the past few years, scientists have described tiny frogs that live in trees, several new species of geckos and the world’s smallest chameleon, which can sit on the head of a match.
Many of these unique species are under threat. In the few thousand years since humans arrived on the island, two-thirds of Madagascar’s unique tree species have become threatened with extinction. Deforestation, driven by slash-and-burn agriculture and uncontrolled fires, is rampant throughout the island nation. Madagascar has lost nearly a quarter of its tree cover since 2000.
This forest loss has far-reaching consequences, impacting not only the trees but also the many species that depend on them, such as orchids, lizards and lemurs. Almost all of Madagascar’s 108 lemur species are threatened.
“[The new orchid’s] natural habitat is also destroyed by agriculture, and people are burning the forest for agriculture, including the trees where the orchid grows,” Stévart said.
Finding this rare new orchid highlights the urgent need for conservation in Madagascar and serves as a reminder of the remarkable species that could be lost if conservation efforts fail to keep pace with the rapid destruction of the island’s forests.
“The flora and the fauna of Madagascar, the biodiversity,” Stévart said, “everything is disappearing.”
Banner image of the new orchid species, Solenangis impraedicta, has a long nectar spur. Image courtesy of Marie Savignac.
Liz Kimbrough is a staff writer for Mongabay and holds a Ph.D. in ecology and evolutionary biology from Tulane University, where she studied the microbiomes of trees. View more of her reporting here.
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Citations:
Farminhão, J., Savignac, M., Droissart, V., Lowry II, P. P., Rajaonarivelo, N., Ramandimbisoa, B., … Stévart, T. (2024). A new orchid species expands Darwin’s predicted pollination guild in Madagascar. Current Biology, 34(5), R189-R190. doi:10.1016/j.cub.2024.01.012
Minet, J., Basquin, P., Haxaire, J., Lees, D. C., & Rougerie, R. (2021). A new taxonomic status for Darwin’s “predicted” pollinator: Xanthopan praedicta stat. nov.. Antenor, 8(1), 69-86. Retrieved from https://hal.science/hal-03715806
Devenish, K., Desbureaux, S., Willcock, S., & Jones, J. P. (2022). On track to achieve no net loss of forest at Madagascar’s biggest mine. Nature Sustainability. doi:10.1038/s41893-022-00850-7
Grimm, M., & Köppel, J. (2019). Biodiversity offset program design and implementation. Sustainability, 11(24), 6903. doi:10.3390/su11246903
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