Nepenthes attenboroughii is an amazing pitcher plant which trap, kills and eat large bugs. Watch here how it catches insects for meal.
This plant is popularly known as rat-eating plant. It is an insectivorous pitcher plant. This amazing plant is named after a keen enthusiast of the genus and the famous English broadcaster Sir David Attenborough.
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The pitcher plant is always a point of attraction for humans because of its bell-shaped pitchers generally filled with poisonous liquid which uses to kill and digest the insects, flies and large bugs. In some species of the pitcher plants, the size of the pitcher is amazingly large enough to trap rats and other small rodents.
Nepenthes attenboroughii is generally find in Philippines. It was also appeared on the 2012 list of the world’s 100 most threatened species compiled by the IUCN Species Survival Commission in collaboration with the Zoological Society of London.
Generally, Nepenthes attenboroughii plant attains the height up to 1.5 m with the stem thickness of up to 3.5 cm. It leaves attains the width up to 10 cm and the length is 30 cm.
You can find lower and upper pitchers in Nepenthes attenboroughii plant. The upper pitchers are 25 cm tall and 12 cm wide, whereas the lower pitchers are generally 30 cm tall, 16 cm wide with 1.5 litres volume.
These pitchers are generally completely filled with a fluid which is watery at upper surface and viscous at lower part. Flying insects, large bugs and sometimes rodents are trapped in these pitchers and become the food of the plant amazingly.
Isn’t it a wonderful creation of Mother Nature on our planet Earth?
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Author: Sonia Goyal Photo Source: Wikimedia