Flower Forger

Baby beetles work together to look and smell—like flowers

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THE EUROPEAN BLISTER BEETLE lays thousands of eggs in the spring.

When they hatch, the bright-orange larvae shimmy up flower stems and sit in clumps, waiting for passing solitary bees to latch on to with hooklike appendages so they can grab a lift. Now researchers have found that these clumps give off a distinctly floral scent—making the larvae the first animal known to mimic a flower's smell.