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"

Re:Large pitcher plant

[Merls the Sneaky]

http://www.cryptomundo.com/cryptozoo-news/nepenthes-tenax/ [cryptomundo.com] and http://www.conservationreport.com/2008/01/new-species-rat-eating-plant-discovered.html [conservationreport.com] have some pictures, not much more information unfortunately.

Pic and more info

[MonkeyBoyo]

picture here [cryptomundo.com], and there is even a Wikipedia entry [wikipedia.org].

Kinda small for a pitcher plant

[dl107227]

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.

Co-author "Rod Kruger" sells carnivorous plants

[MonkeyBoyo]

I haven't been able to find online the paper

"Clarke, C.M & R. Kruger 2006. Nepenthes tenax C.Clarke and R.Kruger (Nepenthaceae), a new species from Cape York Peninsula, Queensland. Austrobaileya 7(2): 319-324.

nor can I find a personal page for Charles Clark [wikipedia.org] who is now supposed to be at the Hong_Kong_University_of_Science_and_Technology [wikipedia.org].

However the co-author "R.Kruger" is Rod Kruger [google.com] who runs Captive Exotics [captiveexotics.info],

We are an Australian carnivorous plant nursery specialising in Nepenthes, or tropical pitcher plants.

The first author Charles Clark seems to have an interest in this business [auscps.com]

Rod kruger is selling them :) atm he is away but charles clarke is looking after his nursery for now.

Sensationalism

[estitabarnak]

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 [terraforums.com]

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 [terraforums.com] 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.

dude, Mozilla 1.7.13 is so like 2006

[MonkeyBoyo]

Mozilla 1.7.13 says

Release Date:, 2006-04-2

So you haven't updated your browser even though when you run it eventually there pops up a window that says you really need to update it NOW and gives you a button to click on to do it? Personally I don't know anybody who is still running "Mozilla". For just a browser they run "Firefox" and for integrated Web and Email they run "SeaMonkey". [seamonkey-project.org]

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Re:Carnivorous plants are fun but this is nothing

[MrVictor]

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 [au.com]