Codariocalyx motorius
(Houtt.) H.Ohashi · speciesAt a glance
Sources9 archives
Databases and archives Codariocalyx motorius's data was compiled from.
WikipediaWikimedia Foundation14 languages↗
BioWikiNetmultilingual Wikipediamultilingual↗
GBIFGlobal Biodiversity Information Facility427 records↗
ENAEuropean Nucleotide Archive · EMBL-EBI6 eDNA detections↗
BOLD SystemsCentre for Biodiversity Genomics4 specimens↗
NCBIUS National Library of Medicinesequences↗
GRIN TaxonomyUSDA-ARSdistribution & uses↗
Open Tree of LifeOpenTreephylogeny backbone↗
CCDBChromosome Counts DB · Tel Aviv U.genome & karyotype↗Every layer below draws on the sources above — open one to explore it, or use ← → to move between tabs.
Codariocalyx motorius (though often placed in Desmodium), known as the telegraph plant, dancing plant, or semaphore plant, is a tropical Asian shrub, one of a few plants capable of rapid movement; others include Mimosa pudica, the venus flytrap and Utricularia. It is widely distributed throughout Bangladesh, Bhutan, Cambodia, China, India, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Taiwan, Thailand and Vietnam. It can even be found on the Society Islands, a remote chain of islands in the South Pacific. It produces small, purple flowers. This plant has small, lateral leaflets which move at speeds rapid enough to be perceivable with the naked eye. This is possibly a strategy to maximise light by tracking the sun. Each leaf is equipped with a hinge that permits it to be moved to receive more sunlight, but the weight of these leaves means the plant must expend a lot of energy in moving it. To optimise its movement, each large leaf has two small leaflets at its base. These move constantly along an elliptical path, sampling the intensity of sunlight, and directing the large leaf to the area of most intensity. Another hypothesis has been offered that the rapid movements are intended to deter potential predators.Simcha Lev-Yadun. "The enigmatic fast leaflet rotation in Desmodium motorium: Butterfly mimicry for defense?" Plant Signaling & Behavior, 2013. "[1] It has also been suggested that these movements may be a form of butterfly mimicry to prevent the laying of butterfly eggs on the plant's leaves. The common name is due to the rotation of the leaflets with a period of about three to five minutes; this was likened to a semaphore telegraph, a structure with adjustable paddles that could be seen from a distance, the position of which conveyed a message in semaphore, hence the common names. Branch during day (left) and night (right) The plant is described in detail in Charles Darwin's 1880 The Power of Movement in Plants.
No narrative description available for this taxon yet.
Size & morphology2
Life cycle & reproduction2
Habitat & environment7
Other traits1
A DNA barcode is a short, standardised stretch of genes that works like a fingerprint — enough to tell one species from another. Below is the molecular trace Codariocalyx motorius has left across the world's sequence archives.
At a glance
★ the standard DNA barcode for this group — the short region actually read to tell this species apart. The rest are extra genes sequenced along the way.
The complete instruction manual Codariocalyx motorius carries — its genome. We read it from three angles — how big it is, how the DNA is packed into chromosomes, and how completely it has been sequenced — and explain how to read each value as you go.
Chromosomes & ploidyhow the DNA is packaged
2n is the full chromosome count in a normal body cell; n is a gamete (egg or sperm), which carries half. Ploidy is how many complete chromosome sets each cell holds — 2× (diploid) is typical for animals, while higher levels (polyploidy) are common in plants. Click any value below to see the underlying records and sources.
2n 228×CCDB · ipcn-api-dl · CCDB · book-ipcn67-71 · CCDB · book-ipcn75-78 +2
2n 201×CCDB · ipcn-api-dl
n 114×CCDB · ipcn-api-dl · CCDB · book-ipcn67-71 · CCDB · book-ipcn75-78
n 101×CCDB · book-ipcn67-71
How far back this lineage goes — and how we know. Everything here is measured in Ma, short for “mega-annum”: millions of years ago. The chart reads left to right like a calendar of the Earth, from the deep past on the left to today at the right edgetop to bottom like a core drilled through the Earth, from the deep past at the top down to today at the bottom.
At a glance
When this lineage existed
How to read this: the coloured strip along the bottomdown the left is the geological calendar — the standard epochs (Pliocene, Pleistocene…) every museum uses, shown so you can see which chapter of Earth's history this lineage lived in. This lineage is a young one, so the strip is zoomed in to epochs — the finer subdivisions inside a period. The orange marker is the DNA clock: DNA accumulates mutations at a roughly steady rate, so comparing this species' DNA with its relatives estimates when the lineage split off — independently of any fossil.
Record type427 records
Origin
Range
Wildobservation + sensor
Human sightings and records, or camera-trap / sensor detections — someone (or a device) saw or captured the species in the wild.
Museum / Voucheredphysical evidence
Backed by a physical specimen — a herbarium sheet, sample or voucher held in a collection. “Vouchered” means supported by material evidence, not just an observation.
Cultivated / Captivenot free-living
A living individual in a botanical garden, zoo or nursery — cultivated or kept, not free-living.
Wildobservation + sensor
Human sightings and records, or camera-trap / sensor detections — someone (or a device) saw or captured the species in the wild.
Holding institutions20 of 35 geolocated
Institutions and collections holding physical, vouchered specimens of this species — click a row to fly to it on the map.
| Institution | Specimens |
|---|---|
| Kunming, CN | 49 |
| Beijing, CN | 46 |
| Guangzhou, CN | 30 |
| Herbarium of the Department of Botany, University of Tokyolocation not on record | 23 |
| Xiamen, CN | 21 |
| Guilin, CN | 20 |
| Chengdu, CN | 19 |
| Taipei, TW | 16 |
| Guangxi Institute of Traditional Medical and Pharmaceutical Scienceslocation not on record | 11 |
| Taipei, TW | 10 |
| Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden, Academia Sinicalocation not on record | 8 |
| Yunnan Universitylocation not on record | 8 |
| Chengdu, CN | 7 |
| University of Stellenboschlocation not on record | 7 |
| 云南省思茅市民族传统医药研究所location not on record | 6 |
| TAIElocation not on record | 3 |
| CASlocation not on record | 2 |
| Edinburgh, GB | 2 |
| Tsukuba, JP | 2 |
| Saint Louis, US | 2 |
| Millersville, US | 2 |
| LDlocation not on record | 2 |
| Kew, GB | 2 |
| H. Balslevlocation not on record | 1 |
| QAUlocation not on record | 1 |
| Bronx, US | 1 |
| Guiyang, CN | 1 |
| Smithsonian Institution, National Museum of Natural Historylocation not on record | 1 |
| Museo universitario di Chietilocation not on record | 1 |
| Department of Plant Resources, National Herbarium and Plant Laboratorieslocation not on record | 1 |
| Central China Normal Universitylocation not on record | 1 |
| Yangling, CN | 1 |
| Nanjing, CN | 1 |
| Nishihara, JP | 1 |
| Fort Worth, US | 1 |
Cultivated / Captivenot free-living
A living individual in a botanical garden, zoo or nursery — cultivated or kept, not free-living.
Where the DNA of Codariocalyx motorius was picked up in samples of water, soil or air — nobody saw the organism, only its DNA left behind. A trace is a clue that the species was near, not a confirmed sighting.
Signal
Where its DNA was found
How strong is each trace?
Modelled climatemodelled
How to read this: each dot is one detection of this species' DNA in an environmental sample. The confidence meter weighs how many independent studies and places back up the signal — one detection in one study is a hint; many across several studies is solid. Records dated before 2008 (when eDNA methods began) are treated as likely mislabeled and left off the map.