Some flowers use scent to attract pollinators. Scent is a signal that helps pollinators find and select particular flowers. These floral scents are typically a complex mixture of highly volatile compounds and essential oils that flowers emit into the atmosphere. A flower scent's structure, color, and odor are important in attracting pollinators. Flowers can be identical in their color or shape, but no two floral scents are exactly the same because of the diversity of volatile compounds, relative abundances, and interactions.
A pollinator detects a flower's scent and follows the concentration gradient of the chemical producing the scent to the flower. Plant species pollinated by bees and flies have sweet scents and those pollinated by beetles have strong musty, spicy, or fruity odors. Flowers that use scents to attract their pollinators are generally drab in appearance, white or purple-brown to dark red-brown, and exude very strong scents that can be detected at a distances over one kilometer.
<em><u>about 3.9 billion years agoThe most recent common ancestor of all currently living organisms is the last universal ancestor, which lived about 3.9 billion years ago.</u></em>
In 1609, using this early version of the telescope, Galileo became the first person to record observations of the sky made with the help of a telescope. He soon made his first astronomical discovery.
