Hummingbird

Many flowers and their pollinators have fallen into evolutionary step with one another in a process known as coevolution. For example, fuchsia flowers, which rely heavily on hummingbirds to disperse their pollen, usually have brilliant red or pink flowers with a long, slender shape and little or no scent. All of these attributes attract hummingbirds, tiny, slender-beaked birds with a poor sense of smell and eyes that detect colors in the red portion of the visible spectrum. The hummingbird also benefits from this relationship. In return for dispersing the fuchsias pollen, the hummingbird has almost exclusive access to the sweet, nutritious nectar buried deep at the base of the fuchsia flower, where shorter-beaked animals cannot reach it.
Microsoft ® Encarta ® 2007. © 1993-2006 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

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