Day 3 (April 27)

Wow! What a wonderful day at the Tropical Botanic Gardens.  My group was lead by an extremely enthusiastic man that just made the botanical gardens that much special.

One of the first things that our guide showed us on his tour was the beautiful Heliconia flower.

One of the fascinating things about the Heliconia flower is how it's cup shaped petals are filled with a liquid substance that smells distinctively like a sewer.  Producing this liquid is the Heliconia's way of adapting to prevent animals from reaching it's seeds.  This is especially peculiar due to the fact that plants typically count on animals to disperse the plant's seeds.  Since the Heliconia does not rely on the animals for this, how do it's seeds get dispersed?

After discussing Heliconias, I came across some beautiful orchids.

The commercial orchid industry in Hawaii manifested in the 1940's.  Over 150,000 hybrids of orchids have been created by orchid growers for more than 150 years.  Growers created the hybrids by cross pollinating.  Despite the range of species of orchids, there are only tree orchid species native to Hawaii, the anoectochilus sandvicensis, liparis hawaiensis, and plantanthera holochila.  However, orchids grow in almost every place in the world (including the arctic).

At the end of the tour, someone asked our guide what he thought the most evasive species on the island was.  He immediately replied fire ants.

Photo Reference: ens-newswire.com

The miniature fire ant (sometimes called electric ant) is predominately troublesome due to it's difficulty to die off.  Not having any known predators and no genetically different species for competition, the fire ants just live on, without many life threatening scenarios.  These ants will take refuge in trees and prevent birds from nesting, will harm any humans that come in their way, and will blind animals by stinging them in the eyes.  These ants even have an adaptation where they will hold on to one another and float on water from shoreline to shoreline. One thing is for sure, the fire ant is not to be messed with.

While learning about the adaptions of the fire ants was interesting, learning about the adaptions of the Gobi O'opu fish was fascinating. 

The O'opu Nopili
Photo Reference: pbrc.hawaii.edu

There are five types of O'opu fish: Alamo'o, Nopili, Nakea, Naniha, and Akupa.  They are the only freshwater fish that are native to Hawaii.  Four out of the five O'opu fish have adapted to their environment by growing pelvic fins that are fused together.  This adaptation allows the fish to climb up waterfalls by suctioning the rocks on the way up.  Isn't that absolutely incredible?

The O'opu Akupa
Photo Reference: pbrc.hawaii.edu

However incredible and smart that sounds, in my opinion, the O'opu Akupa fish does something even smarter.  While the other O'opu fish in the family fused their pelvic fins together, the Akupa's fins are distinctly separate. This allows the fish to swim to a certain point where the four other O'opu fish are climbing and eat them as they come up.  These fish are masterminds!

It was such an inspiring day today.  I learned so much and had such a blast looking up some more information and finding certain photos for this post.  Tomorrow: Kona coffee plantation!  Yummy!