Protea repens and diners

Protea repens nectar can be so copious that flowerheads may be turned down for nectar collection in “a stream of droplets” in a basin. At other times, in dry conditions or from bushes flowering in midsummer, the lower nectar volume may be quite viscous or sticky.

Be that as it may, at pollination time P. repens, the best known and very sugary among sugarbushes, presents big social events in their colourful flowerheads for flying and crawling residents of the fynbos, many of them avid nectar consumers, although some very dissimilar beasties.

The Cape sugarbird is a well-known visitor, becomingly “with it” as photographic model and star perching conspicuously for photos, videos and general adulation. Several sunbirds also partake, as well as a myriad of insects, big and small. The big ones include scarab beetles and protea beetles. The lesser ones include numerous unnamed species that the entomologists haven’t homed in on yet. The innocuous and unnoticed species not impacting human comfort, interest or economics wait longer for being named, studied and possibly exterminated.

In the meantime, they all eat and are all edible... by somebody or something. Also the no name diners and no name dishes excite weird palates in the All Species United Nations consuming of the endless range of consumables.

Insects are also ingested inside flowerheads by species higher up in food chains and food matrices. The visiting diners do not all fancy nectar, but know where to access six-legged protein sources among the oddest parade of crawling delicacies (Rourke, 1980; iNaturalist; http://pza.sanbi.org).