A new species of Nepenthes pitcher plant has been discovered in a remote region of the Philippines. After being rescued, they described the mammoth carnivorous plant. Apparently, some missionaries who became lost in the wilderness originally discovered it. Consequently, a research expedition of pitcher plant specialists returned and found it.
Word that this new species of pitcher plant existed initially came from two Christian missionaries who in 2000 attempted to scale Mount Victoria, a rarely visited peak in central Palawan in the Philippines.
With little preparation, the missionaries attempted to climb the mountain but became lost for 13 days before being rescued from the slopes.
. . .
Accompanied by three guides, the team hiked through lowland forest, finding large stands of a pitcher plant known to science called Nepenthes philippinensis, as well as strange pink ferns and blue mushrooms which they could not identify.
As they closed in on the summit, the forest thinned until eventually they were walking among scrub and large boulders
“At around 1,600 metres above sea level, we suddenly saw one great pitcher plant, then a second, then many more,” McPherson recounts.
“It was immediately apparent that the plant we had found was not a known species.”
David Attenborough in the video below describes the tropical pitcher plant family and N. rajah: “It’s so big that it catches not just insects but even small rodents, and one was recorded that had in it the body of a drowned rat, so if ever there was a carnivore among plants this is it.”
This video shows a mouse falling into a Nepenthes trap:
The first three images are by Alastair Robinson. The last image above was found here.
Video1: Poached Venus’ flytraps are replanted back in Nature. According to StarNewsOnline.com, “Venus flytraps are marked in the wild, [so] if they turn up for sale, inspectors are able to identify the plants as illegally dug up and removed.”
Video2: David Attenborough in “The Private Life of Plants” studies the flytrap, and I believe he did so in Green Swamp.
Venus’ flytrap, a species of carnivorous plant, is endemic to the Carolinas, and some areas like the Green Swamp Preserve, which is located in southeast North Carolina, is home to several types of carnivorous plants including pitcher plants and sundews.
The flytrap is “adopted as the official carnivorous plant of the State of North Carolina,”[*] and law protects it: “No person, firm or corporation shall dig up, pull up or take from the land of another or from any public domain, the whole or any part of any Venus flytrap (Dionaea muscipula).”[*] Despite state laws, poachers target unique plant species to make money, but poaching threatens the survival of many species of carnivorous plants and orchids, since poaching disturbs and destroys habitat. Furthermore, many of these plants are very difficult to keep in captivity. From StarNewsOnline.com:
A favorite of Charles Darwin and famous all over the world, the Venus’ flytrap is a native of our area. Unsuspecting local bugs land on its comfortable leaves and before they know it, they’re swallowed up.
But these curious carnivorous plants can’t defend themselves from human poachers, who steal hundreds at a time from their natural habitat and sell them to people who may not know how to grow them properly. On Tuesday, about 1,000 poached Venus’ flytraps had a happier day as they returned home to the Green Swamp Preserve.
A group of 15 volunteers and staff members with the Nature Conservancy and the N.C. Botanical Garden replanted the flytraps in the Brunswick County preserve. Poachers had taken them from the area about a year ago, but the N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission recovered them, said Dan Ryan, a project director with the Nature Conservancy.
Also, about 500 pitcher plants, another carnivorous species, would be replanted later in the day, Ryan said. The type of soil in the Green Swamp is ideal for carnivorous plants because it’s acidic, wet and nutrient-poor, according to Michael Kunz, a conservation ecologist with the N.C. Botanical Garden.
The lack of nutrients has forced the plants to adapt by eating bugs for their nitrogen fix, Kunz said. It’s hard to raise these plants out of their habitat because they need a specific ratio of soil components.
The first image, which is not the new species discovered in Cape York, shows a species of Nepenthes that apparently trapped and drowned a rodent of some type. That image is from a conservatory in Lyon, France, and the Lyon City Hall released the image. However, the second image (found here) shows the new species of tropical pitcher plant—Nepenthes tenax or the so-called “rat-eating pitcher plant”—from Cape York.
Nepenthes sp. or monkey cups (monkeys have been observed drinking from the pitchers) are a family of Old World tropical pitcher plants that are found from Madagascar to India and South China to Borneo, Sumatra, New Guinea, and Australia.
A new species of tropical pitcher plant has been discovered from Cape York, Australia called “Tenax.” The new pitcher plant is also being described as a “rat-eating pitcher plant.” Although, pitcher plants of the genus Nepenthes are known on rare occasions to trap rodents, frogs, or even birds (the image at left shows the species N. truncata with an unfortunate rat), these plants aren’t vertebrate specialists, since they normally trap insects. However, if the new pitcher plant does regularly trap small rodents, then it is a unique carnivorous plant species, since all other pitcher plants normally feed on insects and may die if anything larger or more complex than an insect (such as a rodent) falls into a large monkey cup.
Like the new giant palm just found in Madagascar, Tahina spe
ctabilis, this new Australian pitcher plant’s location is being kept secret from poachers and collectors. From ABC Online, Australia:
James Cook University ecologist Charles Clarke and a colleague found the new species at a swamp near the Jardine River, but exactly where is a secret.
“They are quite vulnerable,” he said.
“They are only found in a few small areas and if we broadcast the location then there are people out there who would take advantage of that.
One that is worthy of special mention was a large plant of N.rowanae. The actual plant was located on an island in the swamp that was surrounded by deeper water than usual. It covered an area of about 10m2 and the pitchers were huge and nearly as broad as they were high. One thing also worth noting especially in deciding whether N. rowanae should be a distinct species, which we think it should, is the marked difference in the plant compared to typical N. mirabilis . N. rowanae can be distinguished from a distance as the plant has a blue colouration on the upper surface of it?s leaves and some coarse hair was noticed on the upper surface of the leaves. I have also seen these hairs on the leaves of N. rafflesiana. The plant is a lot more robust and tough.
VIDEOS
David Attenborough in the video below describes the tropical pitcher plant family and N. rajah: “It’s so big that it catches not just insects but even small rodents, and one was recorded that had in it the body of a drowned rat, so if ever there was a carnivore among plants this is it.”
This video shows a mouse falling into a Nepenthes trap:
Wikipedia has an entry for Nepenthes tenax , and more information can be found in this publication:
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.
The image of N. tenax at left was found here and here via Wikipedia. The first image showing N. tenax above was found here, and the image showing N. truncata with a dead rat was found here.
