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Rat-eating Plant Discovered in Australia
Megaport writes "Finally, the news that every slashdot-meme poster have been waiting for. A rat-eating vine called "Tenax" has been discovered in the rainforests of the Cape York region in Queensland, Australia"
http://www.cryptomundo.com/cryptozoo-news/nepenthes-tenax/ and http://www.conservationreport.com/2008/01/new-species-rat-eating-plant-discovered.html have some pictures, not much more information unfortunately.
picture here, and there is even a Wikipedia entry.
Other links that discuss this plant mention pitchers that are 15cm. A 6 in pitcher is going to have a hard time holding onto a rat. Pitchers capture their prey by drowning. Fine, downward pointing hairs prevent creatures from crawling back out of a pitcher once they have entered. Again I have a hard time believing that this plant can regularly restrain small mammals. I don't doubt that an occasional small mammal may get trapped but I bet most escape. And a 6 inch pitcher is not all that big. The yellow pitcher plant of North America (genus Sarracenia (no close relation to Nepenthes))can have pitchers that exceed a 12 inches in length (they are more narrow however). Also, many Nepenthes species are vine so that mention in the article is likely from a journalist trying to increase his/her word count.
However the co-author "R.Kruger" is Rod Kruger who runs Captive Exotics,The first author Charles Clark seems to have an interest in this business
Plants in the genus Nepenthes have been known to catch the odd large-animal from time to time. Notably, Nepenthes raja which have been observed to grow individual pitchers that are capable of containing volumes of fluid up to ~3.5 litres. You can find pictures strewn across the internet of a Nepenthes or other carnivorous plant having caught a rat, a bird, a bat, a toad, a shrew, but these are not the normal constituents of carnivorous plant diets. Generally larger fauna caught by carnivorous plants are suspected of simply looking for a drink and being sick or near death anyway. Often times, due to the inability of the plant to digest these creatures the pitcher will often suffer rather than benefit the plant as a whole.
Some awesome, yet very unusual examples:
A bat was caught by a Nepenthes and discovered during the North Eastern Carnivorous Plant Society meeting in 2007. Note that the bat (though it stunk to high-hell) is largely in tact, a testament to the fact that these plants aren't made for eating larger creatures. http://terraforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=110338
A treefrog caught by a venus flytrap (Dionaea muscipula) caught and successfully digested- all but the skeleton, of course! http://terraforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=93070&highlight=frog While a new species of carnivorous plant is always welcome, until enzymes produced by the pitcher, or a symbiotic relationship between bacteria and plant is found which specifically targets rats or other mammals, I call BS to the claim of it being a rat-eater.
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Nepenthes Rajah is probably the most notorious rat catcher. The pitchers on average are about the size of a NFL football and dwarf these newly discovered ones. http://www.vcps.au.com/pics/plants/n_rajah.jpg