Wednesday 19 December 2012

Pitcher plant traps ants with deadly water slide

Heliamphora

A pitcher plant in Venezuela uses wettable hairs to capture ants by turning its inside surface into an insect water slide.


The hairs on the Heliamphora nutans pitcher plant unusually appeared to attract rather than repel water prompting zoologists at the University of Cambridge to investigate whether they were involved in trapping the plants' prey -- most commonly ants.


By: Philippa Warr, Edited by: Olivia Solon


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via Wired.co.uk



http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2012-12/19/water-slide-traps-ants

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