Orchids That Look Like Animals

Most people are familiar with orchids– usually, you’re given one as a gift at least once in your lifetime. (And if you’re like us, you might have also accidentally killed it. They’re hard to care for, okay?!) The most common varieties you’re likely to come across are moth orchids (those spotted bright pink ones) and boat orchids (the pretty pale pink ones)– you might have seen them lined up at the front of your local supermarket in better weather.

But the world of orchids is actually much larger. (Duh.) Orchids, as they are generally recognized, belong to the Orchidaceae family and– with a count of 28,000 species– are one of the largest families of flowering plants.

In fact, Ochidaceae are considered a “cosmopolitan” species, because they exist in virtually every habitat, except glaciers. (Even orchids aren’t immune to #wanderlust.) The highest concentrations of species are found in tropical regions (seriously– orchids know how to live), with new species discovered each year. Among the many notable recent discoveries was the relatable “demon orchid” (whose face seems to scream out from the center of the flower), catalogued in 2016 in Southern Colombia.

Culturally, orchids are imbued with immense value. Around the world, they are prized as the symbols of cities and countries, including Colombia, Belize, Panama, and Honduras. But beyond their beauty, orchids are used in perfumes (see Tom Ford’s famous black orchid perfume line), food (fun fact: vanilla is an orchid), and medicine.

Historically, orchids have long been a sought after commodity. During the 19th century orchidelirium consumed England; to the Victorians, orchids epitomized the romance of conquest and the seductive mystery of far away lands. Orchids, in fact, were so prevalent that at the peak of orchid mania, cheaper orchids were used to cushion rarer ones during shipping.

Still don’t think orchids are big deal? In 1998, journalist Susan Orlean released The Orchid Thief about the poaching of orchids from state parks, based on her investigation of the 1994 arrest of John Laroche. In an almost unbelievable poetic twist of fate, Laroche was on the hunt for his own version of the white whale: a rare ghost orchid.

(Oh and the orchids pictures here are supposed to monkeys. …You see it now, right?)

Getting down to the science of silly orchids, orchids that look like insects (like the “praying mantis” orchid pictured here) often do this in order to initiate pseudocopulation, a process which tricks pollinators into landing on the plant and pollinating it. By contrast, others orchids that look like larger animals or faces just happened to evolve that way. (Kind of the same way the front of cars sometimes look like faces– but hey, that launched a whole franchise!)

Like most species around the world, orchids are facing the effects of climate change as their environments shift. Around the world different organizations– like the orchid museum along the Mayan Riviera in Mexico— are taking efforts to preserve these strange, beautiful organisms.