Tuesday, August 18, 2009

Watch out Rick Moranis!

Today comes with an interesting scientific discovery in the Philippines. Scientists have discovered a species of giant rat-eating plants!

Giant rat-eating nepenthes plant named after David Attenborough


From the article:

Nepenthes attenboroughii, a previously unknown variety of pitcher plant discovered on a remote mountain in the Philippines, is so big that small rodents could be trapped inside and slowly dissolved by flesh-eating enzymes.

It is thought that only a few hundred of the plants exist, growing only on one mountain on the island of Palawan. The species was discovered by a team of scientists who had heard reports from missionaries who got lost in the dense jungle.

It's straight out of Rick Moranis' worst movie nightmare!

Still, it's kinda cool that scientists are still going around, discovering new species of plants and animals that we previously did not know existed. The world is truly a wondrous place, and while Space is obviously more sexy, there is still much that we do not know about our own planet. I am very interested to see what our scientists discover next.

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