Most horticulturists and botanists know that pitcher plants are carnivorous plants native to certain areas of the US, but not all know to what degree these plants will go to trap unsuspecting insects. In the NY Times Science section last week is an article that talks about this plant’s mechanisms for tricking and trapping its food sources.

Not all pitcher plants are the same, some have evolved different and unique ways of capturing essential nutrients.

Walter Federle and colleagues at the University of Cambridge in England suggest that one pitcher plant species, at least, is more devilish still. Its lip, they report in The Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, is slippery only when wet.

This creates a false sense of security for insects looking for food sources, and a unique advantage for pitcher plant Nepenthes rafflesiana. NY Times article