While some carnivorous plants are known to eat insects, the bell-shaped purple pitcher plant or Sarracenia purpurea is the first known in North America to consume amphibians. (University of Guelph)
Scientists have discovered a rare vertebrate-eating plant in Ontario, Canada, that feeds on salamanders, according to reports.
While some carnivorous plants are known to eat insects, the bell-shaped purple pitcher plant or Sarracenia purpurea is the first known in North America to consume amphibians, Newsweek reported. Scientists previously thought only tropical pitcher plants ate vertebrates.
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The plant slowing digests its prey by drowning it in acidic fluid, Vice reported about the study published in the journal Ecology last week.
A biologist from the University of Guelph first discovered the meat-eating plant last year in the Algonquin Provincial Park. “There is a conspicuous absence of vertebrate prey” in scientific records about the plant’s diet, a biologist wrote in the study. “More work needed to be done.”
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Biologists have dubbed the wetland area "the little bog of horrors," according to Newsweek.
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