This Giant Plant Looks Like Raw Meat and Smells Like Dead Rat
From Deep Look
4 min4th5th6thScience
Summary
The corpse flower fools flies by looking and smelling like rotting meat -- all to get pollinated. Deep Look explores how this giant bloom uses a terrible smell as a clever trick to attract insect visitors.
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Teaching resources
Discussion questions
Talk about it
Most flowers attract pollinators with sweet nectar and bright colors. The corpse flower does the opposite -- it mimics rotting meat to draw flies, which carry its pollen from bloom to bloom.
- Why does the corpse flower smell so bad on purpose?
- What kind of insects does that smell attract?
- How does tricking flies help the plant make seeds?
Quick work-a-long
Vocabulary: pollinate, mimic, attract, flower.
Try it: List two ways flowers attract animals (smell, color, nectar). Write how the corpse flower uses a surprising smell to do it.