Meat-Eating Plant Is Discovered By A Student In North America That Feeds On Salamanders

This story os a meat eating plant is straight out of a horrifying book of nightmares. As if giant cats, creepy crawlies and poisonous plants weren’t enough to scare the living daylights out of us, we now have to worry about meat eating plants. The good news is that they don’t feed on humans, thankfully, and the best part? They don’t move. They’re plants. So that’s a relief. Still, imagine seeing a meat eating plant growing close to your home, would you feel safe? While I’m not sure about you, I know I’d relocate. Then there are people who’re fascinated by Mother Nature’s variety of plants, including this one – scientists.

This story is about an undergraduate from the University of Guelph called Teskey Baldwin who was out visiting the Algonquin Provincial Park in 2017 when a meat-eating plant caught his attention.  While I would have just snapped a picture of the plant standing a mile (or two) away from it, Baldwin peeked inside one of these plants and discovered something that blew everyone’s minds. Commonly known as “turtle socks” simply because it looks like one, and the “purple pitcher plant” because of its bell-shaped pitcher that traps insects and tiny invertebrates in, the meat-eating plant’s official Latin name is Sarracenia purpurea purpurea.

Baldwin was hoping to see tiny insects dissolving inside the plant’s liquid-filled pitcher, but instead, he saw a salamander slowly being consumed. He immediately alerted his biology professor, M. Alex Smith, who was equally shocked to see the plant feeding on a salamander. So, why were they shocked to see a salamander in there? Because in their years of research, they’d never seen the purple pitcher plant feed on a salamander. In 2019 Japanese ecologist, Kazuki Tagawa told the National Geographic magazine that it was unusual for meat-eating plants to devour large prey like frogs and rats and that they were usually trapped in the pitchers by accident.

So naturally when Smith saw what Baldwin had discovered he immediately contacted Peter Moldowan from the University of Toronto. An expert in salamanders, Moldowan was surprised to hear that the plant was feeding on one and decided to check it out for himself. He was shocked to discover that one in five of the plants were busy devouring salamanders who were still alive and swimming. Scientists decided to kickstart a survey which later revealed that salamanders were probably part of the pitcher’s diet. So why hadn’t the scientists discovered this before Baldwin did? They didn’t know that pitcher plants ate salamanders because of the time of the year the plants were initially studied.

Scientists usually studied pitcher plants before salamanders completed their metamorphosis and emerged from the lakes, therefore they didn’t know that once they became land-based they were eaten up by these carnivorous plants. Scientists and researchers were filled with questions. Do these plants grow bigger after eating salamanders? Were salamanders a source of nutrients for the plants? Most importantly, were salamanders even good for the plants? Moldowan plans to find answers to these questions starting with measuring the plants to see if they grow bigger after devouring salamanders. He’s also curious to find out which other insects, reptile or amphibian the plants feast on and how they get trapped in the liquid-filled pitchers.

What would you do if you came across a meat-eating plant? Let us know in the comments below. Don’t forget to share this article with your friends and check out JojoStories for more jaw-dropping content we’re sure you’ll enjoy!