When I was a kid, comic books always had those little ads for mail-order venus flytraps, with promises that they’d keep your home bug-free by crushing the life out of unsuspecting houseflies with their razor-sharp fangs and super-corrosive digestive juices. When my mom finally got me one, I was a little disappointed — no ninja-style hunting prowess, no cat-like reflexes, just a tiny little plant that more or less sat there. Not once did it make a diving leap across the room to pounce on an unsuspecting mosquito. The plant’s kung fu, you might say, was highly overrated.
But a newly found species of plant is apparently so ninja-like that it actually lures rats and other small animals into its huge leafy “pitchers,” which are filled with acidic fluids that slowly digest anything unlucky enough to fall inside, bones and all. Carnivorous plants are nothing new, but Nepenthes attenboroughii is positively huge compared to most of its gnat-nibbling cousins.
The BBC says it was originally discovered in 2000 by mountain-climbing missionaries who were hopefully better missionaries than they were mountain climbers — after nearly two weeks of wandering around lost, they were finally rescued and regaled their rescuers with tales of huge rat-eating plants high in the mountains.
Story via Boing Boing.
Main image via It’s a Thrall world.
Side image via Wikipedia.
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