Strange donkey orchid uses UV light to trick bees into thinking it has food

If you’ve ever compared a frozen pizza to the photo on the box, you know the feeling of being duped by appetising looks.

In our latest study we show that animals – in this case, bees – are also prone to being tricked into making poor decisions, which explains a lot about how gaps in perception are exploited in nature.

When Charles Darwin was testing the theory of evolution 150 years ago, he looked at the interaction between flowering plants and the animals that forage to collect nectar.