CHASING GHOSTS
The ghost orchid (Dendrophylax lindenii) is one of the world’s most elusive orchid species. With only 2,000 or so known plants growing in Florida’s old growth swamp forests, many people will search their entire lives just to see one in bloom.
Since the time of Charles Darwin, biologists have been transfixed by the evolutionary link between pollinating insects and orchids. The ghost orchid being no exception. With it’s unusually long petals, the orchid community has long conjectured that the giant sphinx moth (Cocytius antaeus) was the orchid’s sole pollinator, as no other insect could possibly manage to reach through such a long nectar tube.
In an effort to prove this plant-pollinator relationship, a group of intrepid conservation photographers ventured into Florida's Corkscrew Swamp to try and photograph the interaction first-hand. What they witnessed ended up upending their every assumption about the ghost orchid and the pollinators that aid its survival.
"This is something in our backyard that science doesn’t know yet [..] This is the burning question that has outlasted generations"
MAC STONE
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Film Crew (from left to right): Jeff Reed, Eric Bendick, Carlton Ward Jr.
BEHIND THE SCENES
FILMMAKER Q&A
A Grizzly Creek Films Production
Eric Bendick
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Grizzly Creek Films
Mac Stone
Carlton Ward Jr.
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