Data from: Innate floral object identification in a solitary pollinator employs a combination of both visual and olfactory cues

Object identification is fundamental to animal behaviour, and identifying
nutritive objects is key for survival. Solitary insects emerging far from
food sources and without access to social learning must therefore employ
innate identification of food cues to locate relevant nutritive objects
from a distance. Such innate preferences for food cues should be both
specific enough to allow discrimination between food and non-food objects
and general enough to allow for the variety of food objects relevant to
the insect species. Here, we examined innate floral object identification
behaviour in solitary generalist insect pollinator Eristalinus aeneus
using an artificial floral object with both visual and olfactory cues
previously found to be attractive to several hoverfly species across
multiple environments. We used a subtractive two choice assay to present
flower-naïve E. aeneus with a choice between this object and a similar
object that differed in either a single visual or olfactory cue. We found
that innate floral choices of the hoverfly E. aeneus are a product of
broad, plant-based olfactory cues and visual cues, where a combination of
radial symmetry and reflectance in the 300–400 nm and
500–700 nm wavelength range was particularly important for innate
floral object preference. Our study, therefore, shows how solitary animals
without prior experience can efficiently employ multimodal cues to
identify multiple relevant nutritive objects.