Common bumblebees, she’s found, can tell at a distance whether a yellow monkey flower will have lots of pollen for them or not, by the scent of a certain floral volatile compound that translates, in a bee brain, to “heaps of pollen.” But making heaps of pollen takes a lot of resources. So the monkey flower has developed a shortcut. It recognizes the rules of this pre-screening process, and instead of making extra pollen, will exude the volatile anyway—in essence, it will lie. The bumblebee, now duped, will arrive to disappointment. Either way, the monkey flower got what it wanted: a bumblebee
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