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Which came first: the butterfly or the flower? (theguardian.com)
25 points by urumcsi on July 7, 2016 | hide | past | favorite | 13 comments


The Flower - if pollination is the main reason for the doubt; lot of flowers are pollinated by wind. So its natural that Butterfly needs the Flower over Flower needing Butterfly desperately.


As mentioned in the article, Angiosperms emerge in the fossil record later than this butterfly-like lacewing. The earliest flowering plants had flowers that are thought to be pollinated by beetles. Wind pollination evolved several times in flowering plants, with plants that are now wind pollinated arising from plants that had flowers that were larger and had characteristics associated with attracting insects.

There are extant "primative" plants without flowers that are pollinated by insects (many more in the fossil record). A great example is Gnetum, which is a gymnosperm (more specifically, a Gnetophyte). It's likely that pollinators like the lacewing in the article came first, and flowers came afterwards.


Neither. They coevolved. But there's more to the article than that.


The flower. And between the chicken and the egg, it was the egg.


The chicken egg, to be specific. As in the egg containing a chicken, not an egg from a chicken.


I have been collecting different ways the chicken and the egg question can be answered and I am up to 11. I have to get around to writing them up.


Dinosaurs.


With feathers.


The flower. Butterfly was created two days later... :-)


Did you check the git log?... :-)


eh quite sure flowers, because they can be pollinated without butterflies, butterflies however do need nectar (afaik)


This is incorrect. There are butterflies that feed on sap and dung and other stuff as well.


sap from fruit of flowers by chance?




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