"Some of the earliest plants attracted pollinators by producing heat that made these plants glow with infrared light, according to a new set of experiments. The work, published in the journal Science, suggests that long before brightly colored flowers evolved, these ancient plants would metabolically rev themselves up when they had pollen at the ready. Nocturnal insects such as beetles could then see that heat from afar and home in on the target."
"These heat-producing plants, called cycads, exist today in tropical forests around the world, although they're one of the most endangered plant groups. "Some people call them dinosaur plants because they were much more dominant when the dinosaurs were around," says Wendy Valencia-Montoya, a cycad expert at Harvard University. Fossils from over 200 million years ago, compared to cycads that exist today, show that "the plants look exactly the same," she says."
Some of the earliest seed plants, cycads, heat their reproductive cones when pollen is available, raising temperatures 15–25°F above ambient. Heat production creates an infrared glow detectable by nocturnal insects such as beetles, allowing them to locate pollen from a distance. Cycads have changed little in over 200 million years and produce fleshy, cone-like structures that hold pollen or seeds. Thermogenic flowering in plants is rare and energetically costly. Previously observed heat was interpreted as a metabolic byproduct or a way to volatilize scent; heat functioning as a visual infrared signal provides an adaptive explanation for pollinator attraction.
Read at www.npr.org
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