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posted by Fnord666 on Tuesday June 11 2019, @01:33AM   Printer-friendly
from the Should-rename-the-park-to-Seymour-Swamp dept.

Researchers Discover Meat-Eating Plant in Ontario, Canada:

Call it the "Little Bog of Horrors." In what is believed to be a first for North America, biologists at the University of Guelph have discovered that meat-eating pitcher plants in Ontario's Algonquin Park wetlands consume not just bugs but also young salamanders.

[...]Pitcher plants growing in wetlands across Canada have long been known to eat creatures—mostly insects and spiders—that fall into their bell-shaped leaves and decompose in rainwater collected there.

But until now, no one had reported this salamander species caught by a pitcher plant in North America, including Canada's oldest provincial park, a popular destination where the plants have been observed for hundreds of years.

[...]In summer 2017, then undergraduate student Teskey Baldwin found a salamander trapped inside a pitcher plant during a U of G field ecology course in the provincial park.

[...]Monitoring pitcher plants around a single pond in the park in fall 2018, the team found almost one in five contained the juvenile amphibians, each about as long as a human finger. Several plants contained more than one captured salamander.

Those observations coincided with "pulses" of young salamanders crawling onto land after changing from their larval state in the pond. Smith said these bog ponds lack fish, making salamanders a key predator and prey species in food webs.

[...]Some trapped salamanders died within three days, while others lived for up to 19 days.

More information: Patrick D. Moldowan et al, Nature's pitfall trap: Salamanders as rich prey for carnivorous plants in a nutrient‐poor northern bog ecosystem, Ecology (2019). DOI: 10.1002/ecy.2770


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  • (Score: 2) by MostCynical on Tuesday June 11 2019, @02:13AM (2 children)

    by MostCynical (2589) on Tuesday June 11 2019, @02:13AM (#854025) Journal

    Published paper or it didn't happen.

    (cf: every aboriginal/native group with oral history traditions)

    --
    "I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 11 2019, @07:39AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday June 11 2019, @07:39AM (#854107)

    A paper barely scrutinized published for profit in the circle jerk of academic public money collection system? sign me up.

  • (Score: 2) by Hyperturtle on Tuesday June 11 2019, @03:35PM

    by Hyperturtle (2824) on Tuesday June 11 2019, @03:35PM (#854228)

    This is so true.

    There are lots of very, very obvious things we all have seen as kids, young adults, or after years of experience -- that we have no hope of getting credit or fame for, because we stupidly believed that it was already known or common. At best, we can share a sense of incredulity with one another.

    Anyway, I have a number of pitcher plants growing in a small eco system I set up for them; I thought they were neat so I bought a few different varieties and am growing them in a number of portable containers with poor drainage (pitchers are swamp/bog plants); some are in hanging bird cages with plastic liners; the bars of the cage are to keep squirrels and other mammals, out rather than keep the plants imprisoned within.

    Some of these pitchers have grown to be larger than my fist. One or two of them are the size of.. two fists. I could drop any number of common small wildlife in there and unless they have long legs, they aren't getting out. There are also some very very tiny pitchers--smaller than a finger nail, and with a "mouth" the width of a bamboo or shishkabob skewer--to fill the smaller niche of tiny insects that might want to lay eggs in water or check out the "nectar". The plants have flowered as well; and are outgrowing the birdcage to the extent that I need to figure out new housing arrangements for them soon (note: they do not sing to me; they aren't venus flytraps from space, but they *do* have a very comical looking smile when their 'cap' opens just right to act as a lid for the big mouth... it's like they are grinning, and some of the pitchers are bearded as a means of providing some grip for critters to climb up the exterior and fall into the interior... so... large, smiling, bearded plants with little hats).

    There is at least one species of tropical bat that was found to overnight inside a pitcher plant; the bat guano actually serves as the pitcher's food, and they have a symbiotic relationship. The pitchers can live their entire lives providing shelter to the bats and not go wanting for food.

    I also have a small number of sundews--to control the little gnats and mosquitos and stuff that like to hang out in the pitcher plant soil because they are relatively safe there (too small for the pitchers to really catch, but there are some very tiny pitchers the size of a finger nail, growing on the same plants as the monster pitchers...).

    Anyway, next, I am sure the scientists will announce in a paper that they found out the pitcher plants that catch bigger prey grow bigger pitchers, and smaller pitchers to catch tiny prey, and that it's not a fixed pitcher size based on genetics. Or that coloration and patterning may adapt to match the background colors of the based on "bog" it is in...