Evolution Designs a Better Mouse Trap

A pitcher plant that devours rodents! What’ll them crazy evolution folks think of next?

That’s right, ladies and gentlemen. A carnivorous plant in a swamp in Australia eats rats. Rat-creatures are not indigenous to Australia, so finding something that will eat them is a very good thing for Australia, albeit a very bad thing for rats set on world domination.

Cape York is the northeastern-most tip of Australia, a short boat ride from Papua New Guinea where there are many carnivorous plants. Nepenthes tenax is the third variety of Nepenthes, or pitcher plant, to be found in north Queensland. It and N. rowanae are both endemic to Australia, very rare, and found nowhere else. When sea levels were lower, Australia and Papua New Guinea were connected by a land bridge.

Most carnivorous plants consume insects. Even the giant cobra lilies and arums, which include the largest flowers in the world, attract only bugs and not larger animals such as reptiles or mammals. However, there are a number of pitcher plants in the region that includes Sumatra, Borneo, Papua New Guinea, and Cape York, which grow large enough to trap the occasional small critter like lizards.

N. tenax grows pitchers large enough to trap slightly larger creatures, though. The pitchers grow to about 15 cm wide – about 6 inches across – and apparently earn the name “tenax,” which means “tenacious” in Latin. The Daily Mail, that photo-intensive news source, has some pretty good photos that show the size of this plant.

Charles Clarke, an ecologist with James Cook University discovered the N. tenax in 2012. Because of its rarity, the exact location of the discovery has not been revealed. Hopefully, like the Wollemi Pine discovered there a few years ago, Australia’s ecologists and nurseries can work together to breed the plant in large enough numbers to preserve it and prevent poaching, which could endanger such a rare species. Seeds are already for sale.

Other pitcher plants large enough to consume small mammals, lizards, and birds have been discovered elsewhere. In 2007, one was found in the Philippines that could devour mice. A couple of years later it was officially named in honor of Sir David Attenborough.

That means that now Sir David has ten living species named in his honor, and two more that are extinct.

And here’s one, from the same area but grown in Britain, that consumed a bird:

We wonder when a rabbit-eating plant might be found, because we hear those are a real problem Down Under. Australia evolves things to kill other things, so it’s possible.

Last Updated on February 16, 2016 by Anne