The Atacama Desert presents bursts of colorful flowers every few years.
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But deserts hide plenty of life, and at least in one desert, that life bursts into vibrant view once every few years.
is the driest nonpolar desert in the world. It’s so barren that NASA has used it in tests to simulate the surface of Mars.
But in years with enough rain, it plays host to the desierto florido, or desert bloom, a phenomenon that briefly turns its arid sands into a patchwork of color that’s visible even by satellites.
Oven Pérez-Nates
The desierto florido occurs roughly every five to ten years between September and November, carpeting the Atacama desert with multicolored flowers.
Their findings, published in Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution, found that protective compounds in the flowers’ petals are likely responsible — and that we’re only seeing half of the remarkable show.
The researchers studied pussypaw Cistanthe longiscapa flowers, one of the most common in desert blooms. To human eyes, the pussypaws appear mostly yellow and purple, with smaller red, pink, and white flowers throughout.
Solitary wasps and bees do most of the work pollinating the Atacama Desert, and their eyes allow them to see the bloom in all its glory in the UV spectrum.
Purple and yellow pussypaw Cistanthe longiscapa (family Montiaceae), the object of this study
Different pollinators are drawn to different colored petals, so researchers suspect the flowers evolved such an array of colors to attract a wide range of insects.
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As for what gives the flowers their color, scientists say pigments called betalains are to thank.