D: Hey Yaël, remember those TV commercials for venus flytrap plants?
Y:` Of course! I even sent away and got one once. It's cool, but also kind of creepy, to see those innocent looking leaves snap shut and trap a bug.
D: Well, there are other types of flesh-eating plants.
Y: Like what?
D: Like pitcher plants, for example.
Y: Pitcher, like in baseball?
D: No, pitcher like a pitcher of water. Their leaves form a kind of pitcher or cup shape, and they're found throughout the Asian tropics.
Y: OK . . . so how do pitcher plants catch insects?
D: The leaves are kind of slippery, so when insects land on the pitcher's rim, they sometimes fall in and get caught in a sticky fluid.
Y: And then they get digested by the plant?
D: Yep. But what's interesting is that for a long time scientists thought that the plants were passive hunters--insects happened to fall in and the liquid in the pitcher did the rest. But French researchers have discovered that the liquid actively ensnares unlucky bugs. The goo is pretty cool . . . it uses powerful filaments, or threads, to ensnare the prey. The more the bugs struggle, the more they get stuck.
Y: Wow . . . cool. Maybe I'll get a pitcher plant to put next to my venus flytrap.
D: Well, as I've always said . . . you can never have too many flesh eating plants.
