Let me tell you about the hawkmoths and the bees: from visual flower inspection to pattern recognition

We have all experienced the fascinating range of colourful patterns that flowers display on our windowsills and in our gardens. While merely pleasing to us, they can be of great importance to animals that visit flowers for their daily food supply. Visual patterns provide important signals for flower choice, and they are thought to act as ‘nectar guides’, leading flower visitors to the nectary. In this presentation, I will highlight recent findings on the role of visual patterns in the flower interactions of foraging hawkmoths and bumblebees, and outline our path towards understanding how insect pollinators process visual patterns in general.