Julie Radford

speaker

161 appearances 2 recordings 1 series first heard Jul 2026 last heard 14 Aug

Julie Radford’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

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recordings per month · last 12 months

Recordings per month over the last 12 months — 2 in all, peaking in Aug 2026 with 1.

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What The Duck?! · Its survival relies on idiotic male wasps bonking it · 31 Jul 2026 podcast

Okay, Marty, so we're finished in this pot.

All of our orchids are specific in terms of what will actually pollinate the plant.

So with orchids, and in particular the Caledonias that this project is looking at,

They are actually pollinated by something called a thinned wasp.

The orchids have co-evolved and now they give off a pheromone which mimics that of the female wasp.

The male wasp will fly in thinking that the flower is a female wasp, will try to mate with it

And it will get frustrated and then move on to the next flower, which will in turn pollinate the plant.

So these particular ones, the ones you're holding in your hand, are in fact sexually deceptive orchids?

They most definitely are, yes.

It's a process known as pseudocopulation.

So the wasp is tricked into thinking that the flower is a female wasp.

So not only is the flower itself giving off a pheromone, there is a labellum, which...

is supposed to i wouldn't exactly know because i'm not a wasp but it's actually supposed to feel like a female wasp as well so it's the right shape and it smells the same so when the male flies in and tries to attach itself to the labellum and pick it up and fly away with it it's tricked into cross-pollinating these plants and we have four on the leaf width

The story behind the wasp itself is pretty amazing.

The female wasp is a tiny little ant of a thing.

She's very small and she can't fly.

So she has no wings.

But she feeds on the flowers in the canopies of the trees and on other shrubs and nectar-producing flowers.

So she climbs herself to the top of a grass or a shrub or something along those lines and will actually give off the pheromone that will attract the male wasp in, 42, attract the male wasp in to collect her up and mate with her.

And so what he does is while he's mating with her in flight,

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