A giant plant that can gobble up bugs and even rodents has been discovered in Southeast Asia.
The carnivorous plant (nepenthes attenboroughii) was found by researchers atop Mt. Victoria, a remote mountain in Palawan, Philippines. The research team, led by Stewart McPherson of Red Fern Natural History Productions, had learned of the plant in 2000 after a group of Christian missionaries stumbled upon it while trekking up a remote mountain and reported it to a local newspaper.
The discovery, announced last week, was detailed in the Botanical Journal of the Linnean Society.
The pitcher plant is the world's second largest and can grow to more than 4 feet tall, with a pitcher-shaped structure filled with liquid. The plant secretes nectar around its mouth to lure rats, insects and other prey into its trap. Once an animal has fallen in, enzymes and acids in the fluid break down the carcass of the drowned victim.
"All carnivorous plants have evolved to catch insects but the biggest ones, such as this one, can eat rats and frogs," McPherson told LiveScience. "It's truly remarkable that a plant this big has been undiscovered for so long."
The world's largest pitcher plant (nepenthes rajah) was discovered in 1858 by British naturalist Hugh Low in Borneo. The plant's rat-eating habit was confirmed four years later when his colleague Spenser St. John found a drowned rat inside one of the specimens.
Though some have approached McPherson to ask about the likelihood of cultivating the monster plants as mouse traps for rodent-infested regions like New York City, the botanist (who also happens to specialize in pitcher plants) says he finds the idea "a bit far-fetched."
"Mice and rats are attracted to the sweet nectar of the plant, but it only catches them occasionally," says McPherson. "It just isn't practical. There will be too many mice for the plant to catch anyways."
In spite of what McPherson says, I still say we should culture this plant to live in the cities. Think of the awesome potential!
More seriously, well, I just couldn't not share this. It's a plant that eats mammals!
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Before I even read too far in, I said to myself, "Must be a pitcher plant". Sundews, bladderworts and venus' are too specialized to handle actual meat all the time. Venus' in particular tend to meet their demise in people's kitchen windowsills who force-feed their plant bugs and don't realize how little supplement they actually require.
It's interesting that they've found new variations of this most successful of all the insectivorous plants, but I'm waiting for them to find something bigger than ol' Rajah.
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That's a surprisingly small leaf. I guess not all pitcher plants close up to prevent prey from escaping.
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Darth Yoshi wrote:That's a surprisingly small leaf. I guess not all pitcher plants close up to prevent prey from escaping.
As I understand it, the leaf is to prevent too much rainwater from getting in and making the trap overflow; not to seal off the top.
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Impressive find. Hope they can cultivate this so that it's not confined to just that one region.
Kamakazie Sith wrote:Eh when they discover a plant that eats humans then I'll be impressed...
Heh - I was thinking the same thing.
All kidding aside though - does anyone know what's the theoretical physical size limit of a pitcher plant anyway? Can we really have stuff big enough to eat humans or did all those years of playing Dungeons and Dragons spoil me?
Being bigger increases your volume, which means you have to spend more energy growing. To have a human-sized animal eating pitcher plant, it would have to have advantages over being smaller and eating smaller animals in some way, and that would be a rather unusual niche to find.
It's not about size, it's about nutrient requirements. It's probably harder to grow a plant that can digest a human safely than it is to grow a plant big enough to kill one. One good way to kill a venus fly-trap is to feed it hamburger, so my guess is that a pitcher, which can't disgorge food, would literally eat itself to death.
Note: I'm semi-retired from the board, so if you need something, please be patient.
