Re: Insects mouths prepared in advance for flowers?

Glenn Morton (grmorton@psyberlink.net)
Tue, 01 Jul 1997 22:56:15 -0500

At 09:31 PM 7/1/97 +0800, Stephen Jones wrote:
>Glenn
>
Thank you for addressing me directly. I believe this is the first time in
about a year.

>>2. flowers evolved to match what was available at the time, namely,
>>insect mouth parts which were adapted to eating other thing.?
>
>How exactly? Why should flowers need to "match what was available at
>the time, namely, insect mouth parts".

Because flowers need to be pollinated. That is what the birds and the bees
is all about.

> If the "flowers" needed to
>"match" the "insect mouth parts" they would have needed to have
>matched them right away. OTOH, if they didn't need to match them
>right away, then why did they develop to match them later?

There were NO flowers on earth when insects evolved. Flowers evolved in a
world full of insects, 100+ million years later. That is why they developed
a match later.

>Nowhere did I say that "insects needed angiosperms to eat". Clearly
>they did not, if they were alive and well 100 million years *before*
>the angiosperms! My point was that "insects had...at least ten
>elaborate forms of mouthpieces, uniquely "adapted"...to their feeding
>upon flowers, one hundred million years before there were any flowers
>on Earth".

Once again, those mouth parts were uniquely adapted to eating what they ate
100 million years prior to the advent of the flowers.

glenn

Foundation, Fall and Flood
http://www.isource.net/~grmorton/dmd.htm