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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"
I figured it'd be more useful in the fire swamps.
Hell is other people - Jean-Paul Sartre
Australian Geographic magazine has an article on these plants. Apparently they are in an area which also has lots of saltwater crocodiles, so not even humans can claim to be at the top of the food chain there! http://editorial.australiangeographic.com.au/ is the front page but the article does not appear to be on-line.
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.
New York desperately needs them, especially that KFC-Taco Bell from a year ago (http://www.ksdk.com/news/news_article.aspx?storyid=113755). Then again, maybe Washington needs them more for the big ones they have there.
I just have one question for the moderators...
Because Slashdot memes were mentioned in the story, are Slashdot memes exactly off-topic?
Who cares about a wee little rodent eating plant when they have trees attacking cows in India!
Given that pretty much absolutely everything else in Australia is poisonous or capable of eating a full grown human being it doesn't surprise me that plants thewould start making things worse for other creatures as well.
I have nothing compelling to say
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.
Large Nepenthes have been known for many, many years. Do a search on Google images for "Nepenthes mouse" and you'll find examples of where people have had rats and mice fall victim to nepenthes in people's greenhouses so there's little reason it wont happen in the wild, although I suppose you could argue animals should be more wise to it in their natural environments.
;)
There was a story going around various carnivorous plant communities and quite honestly I can't verify it's truth but needless to say it seems plausible. There was apparently a zoo that had some large nepenthes in the monkey enclosure (They're often just called monkey cups because monkeys have been known to drink from them in the wild) and they had to be removed because baby monkeys kept falling into the pitchers and required rescuing before they began to get digested which in turn apparently made many of the children at the zoo observing the monkeys cry.
You can keep nepenthes at home, some species are easy to keep as they don't need a massive amount of humidity and don't need especially warm temperatures but others can be kept in a greenhouse. Personally I keep one in the bathroom as use of the shower provides all the humidity it needs in that room and it does a decent job of dealing with spiders and mossies that make their way in there although be warned, the digestive process isn't particularly fast or terribly exciting, we're talking weeks or months. They do look impressive though, particularly the species with red pitchers or the combined reddish/yellow/green pitchers.
It's interesting keeping carnivorous plants and I started it because I got fed up of insects in my computer room in the summer. I didn't want an insecticutor as the room gets too hot as is and I don't want to use even more electricity so I figured the natural route may be an interesting option, it certainly is. Sundew (drosera), Venus flytraps (dionaea muscipula), Pitcher plants (nepenthes and saracennia) and butterworts (pinguicula) are the best bet.
If you are interested in getting started with carnivorous plants, I don't recommend trying from seed at first and you really need rainwater or distilled water (tap water doesn't cut it) but there are decent suppliers everywhere (www.littleshopofhorrors.co.uk if you're in the UK is decent). The one thing I will say though is please, if you are going to maintain your own creature killing plants use peat from sustainable sources or alternatives! There's no reason you can't keep this type of plant at home though if you can get hold of one from a legitimate source (i.e. not looted from the wild) which isn't too hard.
What I really want is a rat catching venus flytrap or sundew, now THAT would be something
oh yeah, that would be horrific. I would love to see a Satainst make the religious argument for intelligent design. Parasites! Holy crap, there's some material. "Ok, here's the penis fish. You piss in the Amazon, this little sucker will follow the ammonia right up to your pee hole and dig in. It has barbs. And if that doesn't get you, let's talk about fresh water amoeba that will get in your brain and drive you mad! And let's not forget venereal diseases, genetic diseases, mosquito-born diseases. All of this created by God! He's got a thousand species of carnivorous mold, each species perfectly adapted to attacking a given species of ant! All of this playing out below typical human notice, below human care! How about the mud-dauber wasp, kidnapping poor defenseless caterpillars to paralyze them and leave them as a live meal for their eggs, to hatch and feast upon them? Yum yum! That is one sick motherfucker right there, folks. Now let me tell you about my guy..."
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Sell the spice to CHOAM
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