Video of insect eggs falsely shared as 'rare Udumbara flower'

This article is more than one year old.
Published on February 20, 2023 at 06:53
2 min read
By AFP Sri Lanka

A YouTube video with more than 100,000 views falsely claims to show a mythical flower said to bloom once every 3,000 years discovered on a roadside in Sri Lanka. The footage actually shows the eggs of an insect called the green lacewing, experts said, pointing out that the Udumbara flower does not exist.

"Udumbara flower that came from the heavens," reads the Sinhala-language title of a YouTube video with more than 114,000 views.

In the clip posted on January 30, a vlogger shows people gathered to catch a glimpse of small white bulbs with hair-like stems growing on a storefront grille on a roadside.

"We are going to show you a very rare sight," he says. "It is the Udumbara flower said to bloom once every 3,000 years. It may be a sign of luck that this flower happened to bloom so close to our home."

Udumbara is a mythical flower cited in Buddhist texts that is said to signal the arrival of a new leader.

Screenshot of a YouTube video sharing the false claim, taken on February 18, 2023

The YouTube video was shared in a Facebook post that urged people to "hurry and you may still be able to see it", and in a TikTok post which said the "flower" sighting happened in Niyadurupola in Sri Lanka's Sabaragamuwa Province.

Green lacewing eggs

A reverse image search found a picture of the small white bulbs seen in the video in an article about the eggs of an insect called the green lacewing.

The article published by the University of Kentucky's Department of Entomology says the eggs are "perched on the tip of a hairlike stalk" to "reduce cannibalism of the eggs by sibling larvae".

Screenshot of an article on green lacewings on the University of Kentucky's website

AFP showed the video to two wildlife experts, who confirmed that it showed green lacewing eggs.

Professor Deepthi Yakandawala from the Department of Botany at the University of Peradeniya in Sri Lanka said social media posts claiming the footage showed the Udumbara flower were "false".

"Every few years, this claim keeps surfacing, although the public also believes it blooms only once in every 3,000 years," she told AFP on February 16.

"These are eggs of the green lacewing."

Sri Lankan environmentalist Dr Jagath Gunawardana said the eggs were "easily mistaken for a flower because of their appearance and hair-like stalk that resembles a stem".

He said the Udumbara flower was "a myth" and did not exist.

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