Unsung Heroes of Pollination

More Than the Birds and the Bees

By: Peter Bernhardt

Discover stories of reward, cooperation and deception between plants and animals.

Unsung Heroes of Pollination shows the reader a hidden world of pollination, where flies, wasps, mosquitoes, bats and beetles take centre stage. Naturalists, gardeners, citizen scientists and flower enthusiasts are invited to journey into the undergrowth, following Professor Peter Bernhardt and a cast of scientists across Australia, the USA, South Africa, China and Fiji. + Full description

Leaving the familiar birds and bees behind, Bernhardt uncovers stories of reward, cooperation and deception between plants and animals. The author also pays homage to an earlier generation of naturalists who first investigated these unusual relationships during the first half of the 20th century. He explores how flowers have evolved in structure and function, and how pollination systems have emerged and diversified over time. Discover the remarkable 'fit' between animal senses and floral signals, and see how flowers advertise their secret rewards. Stunning colour plates bring you face-to-face with overlooked pollinators and their flowers – from an amber fossil of the bee-like crabronid wasp that flew millions of years ago, and a modern chloropid gnat wearing an orchid’s pollinia on its back, to the elaborate lip petals of hammer orchids luring male wasps, and the long tongue of a tube-lipped nectar bat reaching for its prize.

This is a captivating glimpse into the wonders of an unseen – and unsung – world.

“This is Dr Bernhardt at his most exuberant, combining personal anecdote with trademark scientific rigour to unveil the enduring love affair between flower and pollinator. Orchids and insects play a starring role as Bernhardt – with his abiding enthusiasm for botany, a swag of candid reflections from a research and writing career spanning five decades, and whimsy to spare – travels the world on our behalf.”
– Professor Tim Entwisle, botanist and author

- Short description

Reviews

"Against the trite, simplistic and inaccurate mantra of 'one in three bites we eat is thanks to honey bees', Unsung Heroes of Pollination: More than the Birds and the Bees is a nuanced, detailed and engaging looking into the fascinating and complex phenomenon of pollination. Whilst not excluding native bees (my passion), Bernhardt delves deep into the diversity of pollination strategies, and pollinators, that have evolved. This book is a must-read for any naturalist."
Dr Kit Prendergast (aka Bee Babette), Australian pollination ecologist

Details

Paperback | May 2026 | $ 59.99
ISBN: 9781486319619 | 200 pages | 245 x 170 mm
Publisher: CSIRO Publishing
Colour plates, Illustrations

Features

Tells the story of pollinators and flowers over evolutionary time.
Shares extraordinary photographs of pollinators in action, giving you a unique view of nature.
Introduces a cast of scientists and pollination sleuths, and the importance of citizen science.
Brings iconic species to life through pollination networks.
Empowers readers to better understand the process of natural selection.

About the author
Acknowledgements
Introduction: Another abominable mystery
1 Why and how do flowers vary?
2 Getting ugly with the goddess
3 One hundred years of mosquitoes and orchids
4 Blood or tears?
5 Gnats in a winter bouquet
6 Waspish
7 A corsage for wasps
8 Beauty through a beetle’s eyes
9 Native rose and its invisible worm
10 When brutal bats bite big buds
11 Conclusions
Colour plates
Glossary
Annotated bibliography and additional reading
Index

Authors

Professor Peter Bernhardt is a widely read expert on pollination, whose career includes stints in the USA, China, Australia and fieldwork around the world. He is the author/co-author of more than 100 scientific papers and 23 books and chapters including popular books on plant life. From 1990 to 1996 his column, ‘The Botanical Detective,’ appeared in The Sydney Review and his articles were also published in Natural History Magazine, Garden, Plant Talk and Good Gardening Australia and New Zealand.

He remains a foreign correspondent and commentator for ‘The Science Show’ on Radio Australia. In 2022, Peter received the scientific outreach award from the American Society of Plant Taxonomists for outstanding contributions to public education in Systematic Botany. Peter remains a supporter of the Nutcote Museum in Neutral Bay, NSW and the Kunming Institute of Botany in Yunnan, China.