A new research has shown that bees exist in a paintbox world in which flowers display different colors that depends entirely upon the angle from which they are viewed. It has been discovered by the scientist that in order to attract pollinators, flower petals use the property known as iridescence.

It should also be noted that iridescence has nothing to do with the color pigment but depends on the surface structure.  To illustrate a perfect example, a compact disc is an iridescent object.

It was already known by the scientists that insects, birds, fish and reptiles use iridescence for species recognition and mate selection. However, it is for the fist time that the new research has shown that even plants use iridescence as well as color pigment to make themselves attractive to bees.

The iridescence was identified by the British scientists in Hibiscus and Tulip flowers and they even showed that bumblebees could separate iridescence and color. Furthermore, the iridescence could also be used as a reward signal by the bees. Bumblebees were trained in the laboratory experiments to recognize that iridescent discs containing yellow, blue or violet pigments offered a sugary reward. The bees learnt to fly to these discs and avoid others with the same pigments which were not iridescent.

These latest findings were published in the journal Science on Friday.

It should be noted that a major reason why iridescence is visible to insects but not to humans is because most of petal iridescence is at the ultraviolet end of the light spectrum.

“Our initial survey of plants suggests that iridescence may be very widespread. From gardening to agriculture, flowers and their pollinators play an enormously important role in our daily lives, and it is intriguing to realize that they are signaling to each other with flashing multicolor that we simply can't see,” said Dr Beverley Glover, from Cambridge University, who led the study.