[rflrob]

I always hesitate to ascribe motives to non-human animals, but the butterfly shouldn’t particularly “care” whether the pollen gets from its body back to a plant. If the butterfly is eating the pollen, then maybe there’s an advantage to hoovering up more just by getting close, but that doesn’t mean it wants to give any pollen back to other plants.

On the other hand, if the butterfly is eating the nectar and the pollination is an ancillary effect, then you have to start invoking more complicated mechanisms. Maybe successful pollination of the plants increases the food supply later? Maybe the flowers are not neutrally charged, but instead become oppositely charged when the pollen is ready to bias pollinators to come close at appropriate times? You can always construct some just-so story that fits the observed evidence, but where it becomes science is when you make predictions and test them.

[adrian_b]

The butterflies are adults that do not need to grow, they just need energy, so they normally eat only nectar. They have a mouth adapted for sucking liquids, which could not be used to eat solid food, like pollen.

On the other hand, the bees collect both nectar and pollen. Nectar to provide energy for themselves (which they dehydrate into honey, which can be stored for a long time, unlike fresh nectar), and pollen, which is rich in proteins, to feed their larvae, which need to grow into adults.

[adolph]

I’m reading “The Light Eaters” which takes a broad look at plant behavior. It would not surprise me if the premise is inverted, that plants selected for electrostatically charged butterflies by selectively changing nectar availability.