Speaker 1: I guess what, mango? What's that? Well? So, did you
Speaker 1: ever have a venus fly trap as a kid? I
Speaker 1: did not. I mean my cousins Roceni and Rohan, who
Speaker 1: are so cool, they had one. Yeah, all the cool
Speaker 1: kids had on it. It's true, you know. I think
Speaker 1: one of the things I remember most about it was
Speaker 1: how impossible it was to convince my friends not to
Speaker 1: keep making it close up like this one that I had.
Speaker 1: And there was just something too satisfying about like taking
Speaker 1: out pencil or something like that and triggering it to
Speaker 1: close up. Yeah. I feel like every kid who's been
Speaker 1: around one is guilty of like trying to feed it
Speaker 1: something they shouldn't. Well, And I was recently reminded of
Speaker 1: a little display of these carnivorous plants that one of
Speaker 1: our teachers had put out in front of her classroom.
Speaker 1: This was back in third grade, and ye know, there
Speaker 1: was some venus fly traps, some picture plants of course,
Speaker 1: a few others, and it was weird how problematic this
Speaker 1: display became because you had this one group of kids
Speaker 1: that they couldn't resist, and so every day at recess
Speaker 1: or anytime they were outside, they would try to find
Speaker 1: anything's to feed the plant like insects, whatever they could find,
Speaker 1: and things got a little out of hand when one
Speaker 1: day the teacher found a matchbox car inside one of
Speaker 1: the picture plants. I had no idea. I didn't think
Speaker 1: mashbox cars tasted like meat, well me either, but apparently
Speaker 1: they did. But it really did show just how impossible
Speaker 1: it is for a group of kids to resist feeding
Speaker 1: these plants that they saw as just being so exotic.
Speaker 1: And you know, keep in mind, this was I think
Speaker 1: a year or two after the remake of Little Shop
Speaker 1: of Horrors had come out, so you know, this idea
Speaker 1: of a ferocious flesh eating plant was it was kind
Speaker 1: of already in kids minds, and it actually led to
Speaker 1: the bigger problem, which was that some of the older
Speaker 1: kids in the school were telling some of the kindergarteners
Speaker 1: that these plants were going to eat them. Of course,
Speaker 1: and it only took a couple of kindergarteners who simply
Speaker 1: refused to walk past the display to put it to
Speaker 1: an end, and the display disappeared as quickly as it
Speaker 1: went up. Or else, I guess it just got moved
Speaker 1: to the science lab, but either way, it was no
Speaker 1: longer in the hallway for kids to see poor kids.
Speaker 1: But you know, even if you're horrified by the plants, like,
Speaker 1: there's something so fascinating about them, right, yeah, And it's
Speaker 1: what made us want to tackle today's topic, you know,
Speaker 1: to talk about things like the plant that Darwin described
Speaker 1: as the most wonderful plant in the world, to think
Speaker 1: about which animal actually likes to spend its nights inside
Speaker 1: a picture plant, and of course, which state is the
Speaker 1: only one with an official state carnivorous plant. There's so
Speaker 1: much to bide into, so let's dive in. Ya. Hey,
Speaker 1: their podcast listeners, Welcome to Part Time Genius. I'm Will
Speaker 1: Pearson and it's always I'm and by my good friend
Speaker 1: Manes Ticketer and on the other side of the soundproof
Speaker 1: glass tending to his own venus fly trap but trying
Speaker 1: to feed it. Is that a slim slim him? Oh wow,
Speaker 1: that's our friends and producer Tristan McNeil. I know, I
Speaker 1: already told him, I don't think it's going to eat
Speaker 1: a slim to him, Tristan, but he just looked me
Speaker 1: in the eye and said, meat is meat. Kind of
Speaker 1: a weird catchphrase there, Tristan. But this is something that
Speaker 1: a lot of people are actually curious about is what
Speaker 1: types of meat do Venus fly traps preferred? You know? Yeah,
Speaker 1: so usually, of course they go for insects and spiders,
Speaker 1: though I did read that some fly traps will occasionally
Speaker 1: catch a small frog for dinner. And there they're also
Speaker 1: these carnivorous pitcher plants in the Philippines that are big
Speaker 1: enough to digest rats and shrews. Wow, so that's actually
Speaker 1: true then? Is that something that happens often? Not exactly,
Speaker 1: so frogs and rodents are pretty big meals for carnivorous plants. Uh, Basically,
Speaker 1: it's like a I don't know, like if if if
Speaker 1: human ate an entire cow or something, Right, It's not
Speaker 1: something that we do very often, just because of how
Speaker 1: much time and energy it takes to digest something that huge. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't eat an entire cow every day. I feel
Speaker 1: like that's just more of a sometimes food for special occasions,
Speaker 1: the full cow. But I mean, seriously, though, how amazing
Speaker 1: is it that there are plants that can actually eat animals?
Speaker 1: I mean, it's kind of terrifying, but it's also pretty incredible. Yeah,
Speaker 1: It's one of those things that always measures to amaze me.
Speaker 1: And creep me out, like every time I think about it.
Speaker 1: You know, it also just seems so unplant like. Uh,
Speaker 1: it feels like, you know, a plant that hunts and
Speaker 1: traps and kills and digests the meal. Like those aren't
Speaker 1: plant activities. I don't mean to stereotype, but and that's
Speaker 1: why today's show was such a fun one to put together,
Speaker 1: because so much of what we found that was just
Speaker 1: completely unexpected. So today we'll be answering all sorts of
Speaker 1: bizarre questions that most of us have never thought to ask,
Speaker 1: things like why did carnivorous plants evolve a taste for meat?
Speaker 1: Venus fly traps really know how to count? And how
Speaker 1: come Thomas Jefferson was so obsessed with meat eating plants.
Speaker 1: There's a lot to cover today, But where do you
Speaker 1: think you want to start? Mango, So, one of the
Speaker 1: things we should probably get out of the way right
Speaker 1: up front is why carnivorous plants eat meat in the
Speaker 1: first place. I think it's clearly because they're they're evil.
Speaker 1: We talked about the timing of the movie a little
Speaker 1: shop of our Scientifically speaking, I think that is the answer, right. Yeah, So,
Speaker 1: you know, one weird thing is I've never seen that
Speaker 1: movie as strange as it is, but uh, and I
Speaker 1: know it's beloved, but uh, you know, for actual carnivorous plants,
Speaker 1: meat isn't really what they're after. Like they don't capture
Speaker 1: live prey for the thrill of the hunt or whatever,
Speaker 1: or for the taste for that matter. Um, you know,
Speaker 1: as you can guess they're they're just doing it as
Speaker 1: a way to obtain important nutrients like nitrogen and phosphorus.
Speaker 1: I mean, but it feels like there's got to be
Speaker 1: an easier way to get those nutrients, Like why not
Speaker 1: just absorb them through their roots like those nice, you know,
Speaker 1: peaceful plants they're out there. Yeah, that's right. I mean,
Speaker 1: it is kind of an extreme measure when you think
Speaker 1: about it, but they had to develop that way because
Speaker 1: carnivorous plants tend to live in places where the soil
Speaker 1: is really then and pour and nutrients. Um so you
Speaker 1: might think of like a swamp or a bog and
Speaker 1: and since the plants can't get what they need from
Speaker 1: the soil alone, they get it by digesting this live prey. Basically,
Speaker 1: the nutrients that come from the prey helped the plant
Speaker 1: grow faster and increase their reproductive odds. All right, So
Speaker 1: if the metating trait was an evolutionary response to poor soil,
Speaker 1: then where did the carnivorous plants first come from? Because
Speaker 1: I'm just curious which part of the world had soils
Speaker 1: so bad that the plants were having to figure out,
Speaker 1: like how to eat flies and stuff like that, just
Speaker 1: to figure out how to survive. Yeah, I mean, carnivorous
Speaker 1: plants are native to places all over the world, and
Speaker 1: in fact, you can find them on every continent but Antarctica.
Speaker 1: And it's interesting because it suggests that throughout history plant
Speaker 1: species have evolved carnivorous tendencies again and again. In fact,
Speaker 1: that they've done it no less than nine times according
Speaker 1: to researchers. And uh, any place in the world that
Speaker 1: had lousy enough soil basically became this breeding ground for
Speaker 1: carnivorous plants. And today they're actually about six hundred unique
Speaker 1: species worldwide. So you're saying that each of those six
Speaker 1: hundred can be traced back to one of you know,
Speaker 1: ten or so common ancestors. And that's right, because even
Speaker 1: though several different plants species hit upon the idea of
Speaker 1: eating meat, they came up with totally different like kinds
Speaker 1: of traps for sourcing that meat. Um. You know, we're
Speaker 1: probably most familiar with venus fly traps, which have those
Speaker 1: spring trap jaws and and that they used to snare
Speaker 1: their prey. But uh, you know, other carnivorous plants have
Speaker 1: their own strategies. There's, um, there's the sunde plant, which
Speaker 1: uses a bunch of sticky tentacles to like grab passing bugs.
Speaker 1: And um there's something called the butterboard which has this broad,
Speaker 1: flat leaf and and that kind of acts as like
Speaker 1: a fly paper, so an insect gets stuck in place,
Speaker 1: and then the leaf glands cover the bug and digestive mucus,
Speaker 1: and you know, all the nutrients are then absorbed straight
Speaker 1: into the leaf. A nightmare. It's like being chained to
Speaker 1: a wall while the wall eat you. It's just not
Speaker 1: something to think, what's the wall is dripping this gross
Speaker 1: google over you at the same time, you know, as
Speaker 1: memorable as the butter awarts trap is, my my favorite
Speaker 1: carnivorous plant is the picture plant, and they're probably the
Speaker 1: second most known next to the flat traps. They have
Speaker 1: these specialized leaves that use color and and also sent
Speaker 1: to draw insects to their picture like organs, and then
Speaker 1: thanks to all these downward facing hairs on the leaves,
Speaker 1: the insects aren't able to crawl back out. Instead, they
Speaker 1: just slip into this deadly enzyme bath that slowly digest them.
Speaker 1: I can see why that's your favorite. I mean, who
Speaker 1: doesn't love the old dunkleman a tub of acid routine.
Speaker 1: And it's impressive. Yeah, but I mean I get that
Speaker 1: it's gruesome, but I kind of like how well designed
Speaker 1: it is, right, Like it's super tricky. And you know,
Speaker 1: picture plants can be gross too. They don't actually have
Speaker 1: a way of expelling their waste, so as the plant
Speaker 1: gets older, it's picture just kind of fills up with
Speaker 1: all these indigestible insect parts until it kind of becomes
Speaker 1: this big bug graveyard. And while the picture plants acid
Speaker 1: bad sounds like kind of bad. The thing is like
Speaker 1: all carnivorous plants rely on some kind of chemical cocktail
Speaker 1: to digest their prey um fly traps injected into the
Speaker 1: chambers where they trapped their prey um butter warts, as
Speaker 1: we mentioned, secrete it through the leaves. And in fact,
Speaker 1: there was a study last year out of the University
Speaker 1: of Buffalo, and it shows just how similar this technique
Speaker 1: is across species. Basically, it proved that different carnivorous plants,
Speaker 1: including ones that were only distantly related, all used the
Speaker 1: same molecular recipe for digestive fluids. And that's despite the
Speaker 1: fact that some of these plants are native to different
Speaker 1: continents and evolved separately over the course of millions of years.
Speaker 1: Oh wow, that's interesting. So I guess they took fluid
Speaker 1: samples and compared them across species or something. Yeah, exactly,
Speaker 1: and they found that all the plants relied on similar enzymes.
Speaker 1: But what was even more amazing was that the enzymes
Speaker 1: aren't unique to carnivorous plants. They're actually used by non
Speaker 1: carnivorous plants as a way to fight off pathogens. All right,
Speaker 1: so then when the carnivorous plants kind of adapted and
Speaker 1: repurpose the enzymes for use and digestion. But I mean,
Speaker 1: how did that work? Exactly? The example I came across
Speaker 1: as this polymer called kitan, and apparently it's what the
Speaker 1: cell walls of fungi are made from. So plants obviously
Speaker 1: don't want a bunch of fun guy growing on their
Speaker 1: roots and choking the life out of them. So they
Speaker 1: produced the special enzyme to break the kiting down and
Speaker 1: keep these funguses at bay. But in the case of
Speaker 1: carnivorous plants, that enzyme has been repurposed to eat away
Speaker 1: like insect exoskeletons and uh that also happens to be
Speaker 1: made of kitan. So it's it's a pretty wild case
Speaker 1: of plants kind of reprogramming their existing genes to suit
Speaker 1: this more meat loving lifestyle. Alright, So so maybe all
Speaker 1: carnivorous plants share this same gross bond, But I still
Speaker 1: think you need to convince me a little bit more
Speaker 1: about picture plants. You're really on this. It's that that
Speaker 1: we know that flooded grave already described has to make
Speaker 1: them like fifty times grosser than the other meat eaters
Speaker 1: that are out there. It's just kind of weird. Well,
Speaker 1: what if I told you that a picture plant is
Speaker 1: actually a cradle of life that you'd just be making
Speaker 1: up words? What what do you mean by that? So
Speaker 1: one of the things that I'm surprised to learn is
Speaker 1: that there are actually some species of super tiny frogs
Speaker 1: that lay their eggs in the safety of a picture plant.
Speaker 1: And then when they hatch, these baby tadpoles spend their
Speaker 1: first weeks of life swimming in that murky water, right
Speaker 1: up until they're old enough to sort of hop out
Speaker 1: and strike out on their own. You know. There's also
Speaker 1: a mammal in Borneo that just likes the cozy up
Speaker 1: to picture plants. It's called the common wooly bat, and
Speaker 1: apparently one of its favorite places to sleep is snuggled
Speaker 1: up inside a picture plant. Wait, it actually sleeps inside
Speaker 1: the picture Like, why would it want to sleep in
Speaker 1: a bunch of dead bug water? What's the incentive there? Well,
Speaker 1: that's what makes this particular species so special, So it
Speaker 1: actually grows two different kinds of pictures. The first is
Speaker 1: your standard bug catching picture. It's close to the ground,
Speaker 1: it smells sweet, and it's filled with these digestive fluids.
Speaker 1: But the second type of picture is designed especially for bats.
Speaker 1: It's higher up, it's dry inside, and it shaped almost
Speaker 1: like a little reflector dish so that the bats can
Speaker 1: easily spot it with their sonar. Well, what's so special
Speaker 1: about bats? Like, why would the plants kind of roll
Speaker 1: out the red carpet just just for them? I guess
Speaker 1: it's that the plants are actually after the guana or
Speaker 1: you know, the bat waste, and every time the bats
Speaker 1: spend the night, they relieve themselves and leave nutrients for
Speaker 1: the plants to absorb. So it's kind of like a
Speaker 1: bat hotel where everyone just pays for the room with feces.
Speaker 1: Disgusting business model, but whatever works. But I mean, I
Speaker 1: think you sort of brought me around on the picture plants.
Speaker 1: They are pretty enterprising. I have to give you that
Speaker 1: they are. And and you know, picture plants aren't the
Speaker 1: only ones either. You know, carnivorous plants in general have
Speaker 1: this alien kind of cleverness about them where when you
Speaker 1: look at the level of ingenuity and precision on you know,
Speaker 1: how they display their traps, it's kind of easy to
Speaker 1: forget your dealing with a plant and not some kind
Speaker 1: of intelligent animal. Yeah, I know what you mean. And
Speaker 1: you know, I think the venus fly trap would probably
Speaker 1: be a good example of the kind of have the
Speaker 1: kind of intelligence that you're talking about. So what do
Speaker 1: you say we take a closer look at it? What
Speaker 1: makes those tick? Yeah? That sounds great. First, let's take
Speaker 1: a quick break. You're listening to Part Time Genius and
Speaker 1: we're talking about the cutthroat world of carnivorous plants. You know,
Speaker 1: despite their violent tendencies meeting, plants have had their fair
Speaker 1: share of admirers over the years. Charles Darwin, for instance,
Speaker 1: was a big fan of carnivorous plants, and honestly, maybe
Speaker 1: too big of a fan. He wrote an entire book
Speaker 1: about them, and at one point he even declares the
Speaker 1: venus fly trap to be the most wonderful plant in
Speaker 1: the world. He also went to bat for the plants
Speaker 1: against scientists who weren't as enthusiastic about meat eating plants
Speaker 1: as he was. Like, you remember those those sun do
Speaker 1: things that you mentioned earlier in the plants with the
Speaker 1: sticky tentacles. Well, apparently Darwin knew a botanist who didn't
Speaker 1: think sun dues were anything to ride home about. So
Speaker 1: Darwin sent a note to the guy saying, quote, you
Speaker 1: are unjust on the merits of my beloved sund It
Speaker 1: is a wonderful plant, or rather a most sagacious animal.
Speaker 1: I will stick up for the sun due to the
Speaker 1: day of my death. I mean, it does sound like
Speaker 1: he was really smitten. And it's funny because Thomas Jefferson
Speaker 1: had a similar fascination with flat traps, though I don't
Speaker 1: think he ever got to study them up close the
Speaker 1: way Darwin did. Yeah, that's true, but I mean it's
Speaker 1: it's it's not for lack of trying. I was actually
Speaker 1: looking into this a little and it turns out that
Speaker 1: Jefferson had an especially tough time tracking down his own
Speaker 1: venus fly traps. It's a little weird because you have
Speaker 1: to consider that some venus fly trap species are actually
Speaker 1: native to the Carolinas. In fact, this is a little
Speaker 1: bit random, but North Carolina is the only state to
Speaker 1: select an official state carnivorous plant, and that is, of course,
Speaker 1: the venus fly trap. But a great fact. You know,
Speaker 1: it is very smart of North Carolina to have snapped
Speaker 1: off that the first round of the you know, carnivorous
Speaker 1: plant draft exactly. But did uh, you know, I wanted
Speaker 1: to talk about Jefferson where, um did he ever get
Speaker 1: his hands on a fly trap? Well, we actually don't
Speaker 1: know for certain. I mean, what we do know is
Speaker 1: that Jefferson started a letter campaign back in seventeen eighty six,
Speaker 1: and he was requesting that multiple people sent him either
Speaker 1: fly trap seeds or fully grown plants as soon as possible.
Speaker 1: I guess this was an urgent matter. And unfortunately, the
Speaker 1: plants were so hard to come by and the postal
Speaker 1: service was so unreliable back then that Jefferson didn't actually
Speaker 1: get his hands on the seeds until a full eight
Speaker 1: years later. So in January eighteen o four, President Jefferson
Speaker 1: wrote a letter to Timothy Bloodworth saying, I thank you
Speaker 1: for the seed of the fly trap. It is the
Speaker 1: first I have ever been able to obtain, and she'll
Speaker 1: take great care of it. So he finally got it. Then, Yeah,
Speaker 1: he definitely got some seeds in eighteen o four, but
Speaker 1: unfortunately the trail goes cold after that until like eighteen
Speaker 1: o nine or so, and Jefferson writes his last mention
Speaker 1: of fly trap ups in this manuscript that's about gardening,
Speaker 1: and it's it's kind of an ominous but a little
Speaker 1: bit confusing of an entry, so he simply wrote, sowed
Speaker 1: seeds of Diane I a muscupula in a pot. They
Speaker 1: were several years old, so I'm guessing nothing came of that,
Speaker 1: but it's kind of amazing that he even't bothered, Like,
Speaker 1: after what eight years he was asking for these seeds,
Speaker 1: he finally got them and then he didn't bother them
Speaker 1: to plant them for like another five years. Like I'm
Speaker 1: kind of questioning his commitment to the plants, I guess,
Speaker 1: so it feels a little odd, But you might want
Speaker 1: to excuse him because he probably got a little bit
Speaker 1: busy with the whole Louisiana purchased thing, got a little distracted.
Speaker 1: But you know, one thing that Jefferson and Darwin would
Speaker 1: both have liked is a recent study that showed that
Speaker 1: the venus fly trap actually knows how to count. So
Speaker 1: what does that mean exactly? Like, what is it counting? Well,
Speaker 1: actually a few things, but I feel like we got
Speaker 1: to back up just a little bit to understand how
Speaker 1: the fly trap functions. So, for starters, each plant has
Speaker 1: multiple wraps, each of which is made of the specialized
Speaker 1: leaves covered in these tiny sensory hairs. And so the
Speaker 1: leaves of the trap, as we mentioned, secrete this sweet
Speaker 1: smelling nectar to help lure in those hungry insects. And
Speaker 1: when one of these visitors brushes against the plant sensory hairs,
Speaker 1: the trap can actually snap shut within a tenth of
Speaker 1: a second. So then after the digestive period that lasts
Speaker 1: a week or longer, the trap reopens and the husk
Speaker 1: of the insect blows away, while the process starts all
Speaker 1: over again. So each trap catches about three bugs before
Speaker 1: it wears out and and really has to be replaced.
Speaker 1: But against is the plant uses multiple traps at once,
Speaker 1: they never have to miss a meal. I like how
Speaker 1: poetic that's onns the husk of the insect blows away. Beautiful,
Speaker 1: But you know, it also sounds like the system kind
Speaker 1: of runs like clockwork. But um, I'm kind of curious
Speaker 1: till where does the counting come in? Well, clockwork actually
Speaker 1: isn't a bad analogy, because the actions of the fly
Speaker 1: trap are basically mccanic uncle. I mean, their their movements
Speaker 1: aren't directed by any kind of consciousness or anything like that.
Speaker 1: But it doesn't mean there isn't some sort of calculation
Speaker 1: that's going on. So, for instance, fly traps can actually
Speaker 1: count the number of times that their prey comes in
Speaker 1: contact with the sensory hairs that are on its leaves,
Speaker 1: and each of those touches brings about its own unique reaction.
Speaker 1: So in the very first touch, for example, the plant
Speaker 1: actually does nothing. And this makes sense if you think
Speaker 1: about it, because you know, a single touch could be
Speaker 1: a false alarm. You could have a rain drop or
Speaker 1: a falling leaf, or you know, bait from a slim
Speaker 1: gym or something like that, but essentially something that wouldn't
Speaker 1: be worth the energy of closing the trap. So instead
Speaker 1: the plant waits, and it waits on that second signal,
Speaker 1: and if one arrives within the next twenty seconds, then
Speaker 1: the trap spring shot on what is hopefully this nice,
Speaker 1: juicy cricket or something. So it really is pretty amazing
Speaker 1: how it how it does function like clockwork, that's fascinating.
Speaker 1: So so the first touch kind of sets off this
Speaker 1: kind of internal timer in the plant, which is pretty wild. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but the plant actually doesn't even stop there. I mean,
Speaker 1: it keeps on counting. So after the trap has sprung,
Speaker 1: the prey is still alive and it keeps on struggling,
Speaker 1: and as it does so, it bumps into the trigger
Speaker 1: hairs even more so, the third and fourth touches send
Speaker 1: these electrical impulses to help prepare the trap for digestion.
Speaker 1: Then the fifth touch tells the gland cells in the
Speaker 1: trap to begin producing digestive enzymes, and so from there,
Speaker 1: each additional touch produces these proportionately you know, greater enzymes
Speaker 1: being created, you know, in order to help digest the food. There,
Speaker 1: So the more in insects struggles or the bigger and
Speaker 1: stronger it is, you know, it'll it'll mean that the
Speaker 1: plant has to release more enzymes in order to fully
Speaker 1: digest it. And it's crazy to think about because the
Speaker 1: fact that a fly is fighting for its life is
Speaker 1: actually the very thing that brings about its death. And
Speaker 1: the harder it fights, the more the plant learns how
Speaker 1: to kill it. It's it's it's pretty wild. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: didn't realize plant transfer so methought unicle about their murders.
Speaker 1: I guess it's it's true, but I mean, if it's
Speaker 1: any consolation, though, the captured insect isn't alive as it's
Speaker 1: being digested, And and that's because the trap is actually
Speaker 1: hermetically sealed after you know, a few hours, so the
Speaker 1: insect has run out of air well before this digestive
Speaker 1: fluid has pumped into to kind of do its thing,
Speaker 1: which I guess is a little more humane. But I
Speaker 1: am curious how the plant knows when its prey is
Speaker 1: fully digested, Like does it count out like a hundred
Speaker 1: mississippis and and then just fits it out. You know,
Speaker 1: I think plants count by Mississippi's as well. It's pretty
Speaker 1: it's an amazing fact about nature like that. It's actually
Speaker 1: a little more nuanced than that. I mean, the the
Speaker 1: inside of the trap is lined with chemical sensors that
Speaker 1: detect the kitan and a bugshell and all the nutrients
Speaker 1: and its blood. So the plant just keeps on digesting
Speaker 1: until it can't detect that stuff anymore. And and once
Speaker 1: the taste of kitan and nitrogen is gone, the plant
Speaker 1: knows the bug is tapped and it's time to find
Speaker 1: something else to eat. So I think what's most interesting
Speaker 1: about this to me is that I feel like I'm
Speaker 1: just picking up valuable tips if I ever have to
Speaker 1: face off against like a giant venus fly trap, because
Speaker 1: and you know, maybe I'm wrong here, but it sounds
Speaker 1: like if you're ever caught in a fly trap, you
Speaker 1: should just be patient, right Like, like if you just
Speaker 1: only moved once every twenty seconds or so, you could
Speaker 1: probably get out of there without springing the trap. Well,
Speaker 1: and even if you did get caught in the trap,
Speaker 1: if you stayed still and waited long enough, the digestion
Speaker 1: would would never begin and the trap would just reopen
Speaker 1: the next morning, So, you know, just for our listeners
Speaker 1: and the off chance you ever encounter a man eating
Speaker 1: fly trap, now you know exactly what it is. Well,
Speaker 1: as long as we're on the subject official fly trap,
Speaker 1: So well, why don't we spend some time on a
Speaker 1: few of the myths and legends about carniverous plants that
Speaker 1: have sprung up over the years. But first, let's take
Speaker 1: another break, all right, mango, So, since he brought up
Speaker 1: man eating fly traps again, I thought we should settle
Speaker 1: the age old debate and answer once and for all
Speaker 1: whether or not a venus fly trap can really digest
Speaker 1: human flat if any guesses on this fet so, I
Speaker 1: would rather not have to watch my back around the
Speaker 1: house plants. So I want to believe that they can't.
Speaker 1: But I guess there's no reason why they couldn't. Write,
Speaker 1: I mean, they wouldn't be able to swallow a whole
Speaker 1: person or anything, but if you threw a little bit
Speaker 1: of skin in there, it feels like the plant could
Speaker 1: probably eat it. It's actually true. I mean, it turns
Speaker 1: out that the fly trap can eat a person so
Speaker 1: long as they were fed. You know, just a gram
Speaker 1: or two at a time. And this is something we
Speaker 1: know thanks to a carnivorous plant enthusiast named Barry Rice.
Speaker 1: And no, Berry did not chop up a bunch of
Speaker 1: people and feed them to his plants, But just about
Speaker 1: seven years ago, Barry did contract this mean case of athletes,
Speaker 1: and that gave him the idea for an experiment. He
Speaker 1: decided to tear off some of his loop to skin
Speaker 1: and feed it to one of his venus fly traps,
Speaker 1: just you know, just to see what would happen. So
Speaker 1: he triggered the trap to clothes and about a week
Speaker 1: later it reopened with just a tiny bit of half
Speaker 1: digested skin google left inside and the rest had been
Speaker 1: completely digested and the plant was totally fine. That is
Speaker 1: so gross, and just the idea that you put a
Speaker 1: little bit of tow skin in there, no hot sauce
Speaker 1: or salt or condiment, that's right. I do have to
Speaker 1: admit it is kind of cool that we're still finding
Speaker 1: out new things about these plants after all these years, right,
Speaker 1: Like even if one of those things is that they
Speaker 1: could potentially eat our feet. You know, Another big question
Speaker 1: I've had is how did the venus fly trap get
Speaker 1: their name, and I mean, the fly trap part makes sense,
Speaker 1: but how does the venus fit in? Like is it
Speaker 1: a reference to the goddess of love or to the planet,
Speaker 1: Because to be honest, neither one really makes full sense
Speaker 1: to me. Yeah, I was curious about that too, but
Speaker 1: I couldn't find anything definitive. Some naturalists say the name
Speaker 1: comes from the white flowers and these ornate leaves that
Speaker 1: the plant produces, and supposedly they were so beautiful and
Speaker 1: feminine that people began to associate them with the goddess venus. However,
Speaker 1: there's another theory that many historians subscribe to, and that
Speaker 1: one's a little dirtier. Apparently, a bunch of naturalists in
Speaker 1: the late seventeen hundreds they thought the plant's trap was,
Speaker 1: you know, kind of resembled a female genitalia, So so
Speaker 1: they started calling it tippity twitchet, which is not a
Speaker 1: term I learned in health class. This was the seventeen
Speaker 1: hundreds and it was a different time. But you know,
Speaker 1: a few years later someone decided to class up the
Speaker 1: illusion to femininity and they gave it the name of
Speaker 1: a goddess instead. It was naturalists or just a bunch
Speaker 1: of cards I think I'd rather stick with the little
Speaker 1: Shop of Horror's origin story and just say that the
Speaker 1: plants are actually aliens from outer space, and I guess
Speaker 1: the planet Venus presumably. Yeah, so you know, a hundred
Speaker 1: years ago, you wouldn't have been alone in that theory.
Speaker 1: So back then we didn't know much about the surface
Speaker 1: of Venus, and all you could see through a telescope
Speaker 1: was this thick blanket of clouds. So a ton of
Speaker 1: researchers speculated that Venus might be this steamy planet covered
Speaker 1: with lush jungle landscape. And you know, this really sparked
Speaker 1: the public's imagination. Um sci fi writers began depicting the
Speaker 1: planet as this I guess, this world of carnivorous plants,
Speaker 1: and and of course that theory fell to the wayside.
Speaker 1: One scientist actually could see the planet's surface and and
Speaker 1: realized that it's actually a bombing nine hundred degrees or
Speaker 1: so on it. So you know that that isn't great
Speaker 1: for supporting life. Yeah, it seems like there was a
Speaker 1: period from about the eighteen eighties to the mid nineteen
Speaker 1: hundreds when these stories of manating plants were really all
Speaker 1: the rage. And you know, one of those famous instances.
Speaker 1: Was also the first depiction of carnivorous plants and pop
Speaker 1: culture that was supposedly this first hand account from a
Speaker 1: German explorer and scientist and in eight one he claimed
Speaker 1: to have witnessed the ceremony in which this tribe and
Speaker 1: Madagascar actually sacrificed a woman to this enormous flesh eating tree,
Speaker 1: and he described the plant as having a base like
Speaker 1: that of a pineapple, with eight long spiky leaves and
Speaker 1: six powerful tendrils that could wrap around a victim kind
Speaker 1: of like snakes would I guess. And this was published
Speaker 1: as if it was a true story, like in newspapers. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean newspapers, magazines, science journals, you name it. And
Speaker 1: other explorers confirmed this story over the years, though none
Speaker 1: of them ever provided any hard evidence of what they
Speaker 1: claimed to have seen, and the reports were just accepted
Speaker 1: as fact for decades, all the way up until you know,
Speaker 1: like the mid nineteen fifties when this science writer named
Speaker 1: Willie Lay finally debunked this whole thing as being a hoax. So,
Speaker 1: I guess this was all made up as a way
Speaker 1: to like make money or something. Well, somebody made the
Speaker 1: story of but it actually wasn't the stories author, And
Speaker 1: in the end the German explorer turned out to be
Speaker 1: just as fake as the tribe and the plant itself,
Speaker 1: and so nobody really knows who was behind the hoax,
Speaker 1: but whoever it was helps cement these carnivorous plants and
Speaker 1: the popular culture for decades after. Without this man eating
Speaker 1: tree of Madagascar to pave the way, we may never
Speaker 1: have gotten the genre classics like Little Shop of Horrors
Speaker 1: or some of the others, which, obviously, as you said earlier,
Speaker 1: made such an impact on you. So you know, what
Speaker 1: I find really strange is for all the stories we've
Speaker 1: concocted about the threat of carnivorous plants and how creepy
Speaker 1: most people seem to find them, the plants are really
Speaker 1: the ones that should be afraid of Oz, not the
Speaker 1: other way around. What do you mean by that, well,
Speaker 1: matchbox cars for starters, but of course, But one thing
Speaker 1: I came across this week is that many carnivorous plants
Speaker 1: species are endangered, possibly as many as half of all
Speaker 1: known species, and as you might guess, humans are the
Speaker 1: biggest threat they face, from habitat loss to pollution to
Speaker 1: even poaching. And we're just making things really difficult for
Speaker 1: me eating plants, say poaching, So people poach these carnivorous plants. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's actually a huge problem. So, um, if you take
Speaker 1: venus fly traps, for instance, you remember how Jefferson had
Speaker 1: such a hard time sourcing them even though he lived
Speaker 1: just one state north of their native habitat. I mean
Speaker 1: that's because wild fly traps grow in this extremely limited area.
Speaker 1: There's a seventy five mile range in and around Wilmington,
Speaker 1: North Carolina, and even within that area, the plants are
Speaker 1: really rare. Alright, So did the plants go for a
Speaker 1: lot of money or something, because I feel like you
Speaker 1: can find them pretty cheap if you just go to
Speaker 1: greenhouses and they're even in those children science kids like that.
Speaker 1: You see. Sometimes I'm a little confused by that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's the thing that the plants only net the poachers
Speaker 1: about twenty five cents each on the black market, So
Speaker 1: that means they actually have to make off with a
Speaker 1: huge bunch of plants in order for it to be lucrative,
Speaker 1: and of course that only makes a problem worse. Right,
Speaker 1: Like you know, I was reading this story in Smithsonian
Speaker 1: about this international group of fly trap poachers who once
Speaker 1: tried to smuggle nine thousand poached fly traps on a
Speaker 1: flight to Netherlands. Yeah, it's more than a quarter of
Speaker 1: the species naturally growing population. Awesome. I'm assuming they were caught. Yeah,
Speaker 1: thankfully they were intercepted at customs. Um, this is a
Speaker 1: little random, but the Dutch guy who tried to smuggle
Speaker 1: plants claimed that he was he was actually exporting Christmas ferns,
Speaker 1: which is such a strange thing. That's a pretty bold move.
Speaker 1: But I mean, obviously there are laws against what these
Speaker 1: guys were doing, right, Yeah, definitely. In fact, the problem
Speaker 1: got to be so bad then late two thousand and fourteen,
Speaker 1: North Carolina passed more laws to about stealing flight trafts.
Speaker 1: But um, you know, now poachers can actually face anywhere
Speaker 1: from one to three years in prison for digging up
Speaker 1: the plants. Hopefully that does the trick and kind of
Speaker 1: convinces these folks to leave them where they are. But
Speaker 1: you know, it's bizarre and unsettling as carnivorous plants can be,
Speaker 1: they undoubtedly make the world a stranger and more colorful
Speaker 1: place to live. So I hope they stick around. Obviously
Speaker 1: amen to that, But you know, because it couldn't hurt
Speaker 1: to stay on their good side. But what do you
Speaker 1: say we headed the fact off and share some of
Speaker 1: the more fun facts about carniverous plants. All right, that
Speaker 1: sounds like a plan. Yeah. While Facebook has developed a
Speaker 1: reputation is the place to stock xs and manipulate elections,
Speaker 1: you shouldn't really get down on the social media site
Speaker 1: just yet. Because one of the cooler things Facebook has
Speaker 1: helped us do is identify new species. There's this amateur
Speaker 1: researcher named Reginaldo vascan Salos, and he uploaded a picture
Speaker 1: of a plant he saw on a hike on this
Speaker 1: mountaintop in Brazil, and it turned out to be a
Speaker 1: new species called the Magnificent sun dub. Apparently, plant, which
Speaker 1: grows five feet tall and can eat dragonflies, is severely endangered.
Speaker 1: But it's on this mountain that a lot of people access,
Speaker 1: so it's kind of surprising that it took us this
Speaker 1: long to find it. Okay, So we talked about this earlier,
Speaker 1: that carnivorous plants use all sorts of techniques to attract
Speaker 1: their prey, you know, from bright color to the various
Speaker 1: fragrances they admit. Scientists in India just discovered that they
Speaker 1: have another trick up their slaves. Some picture. It's in
Speaker 1: the region glow with this ultra violet ring around their room,
Speaker 1: and so while humans can't see the ring, ants and
Speaker 1: other insects are actually very much attracted to it. That's
Speaker 1: really fascinating. But how do you test out something like that. Well,
Speaker 1: the scientists actually painted some of the plants in the
Speaker 1: wild with some sort of chemical that turned the UV
Speaker 1: ring off, and when they did that, those plants weren't
Speaker 1: able to catch nearly as much food as the others.
Speaker 1: That's really fascinating. So Alice Obscura has a little piece
Speaker 1: on celebrities with animals named for them, and of course
Speaker 1: there are plenty of these right Like we've talked about
Speaker 1: Hugh Hefner has a rabbit name for him. I think
Speaker 1: Michael Jackson has a hermit crab. We've recently talked about
Speaker 1: a shark name for Peter Benchley. But you know, according
Speaker 1: to the article, only about fifty people have two animals
Speaker 1: named for them, and only nine people have more than
Speaker 1: five species named for them. And those heroes tend to
Speaker 1: be people like uh Franklin Roosevelt, Barack Obama, Nelson Mandela.
Speaker 1: But you know, one person with at least eighteen critters
Speaker 1: and plants named for him is David attenborgh Um. The
Speaker 1: naturalist has a wildflower, a flightless weevil, and a kidna
Speaker 1: and at Addenborough saurus. But these are all for the
Speaker 1: most interesting to me is the Adenburgh picture plant, which
Speaker 1: is only found on one mountain in the Philippines. And
Speaker 1: this is actually the one that's big enough to digest rats.
Speaker 1: And oh wow, I'd actually love to see one of
Speaker 1: those things. That's pretty wild. Well, here's something that's interesting.
Speaker 1: In Wilmington, North Carolina. There's a massive carnivorous plant garden.
Speaker 1: The city apparently created the space after a beloved horticulturist
Speaker 1: named Stanley Reader who had passed away. Now he was
Speaker 1: known around the town as the fly Trap. And it's
Speaker 1: cool because there's a full three force acre dedicated to
Speaker 1: cultivating picture plants, sun dues, venus, fly traps and all
Speaker 1: these other meat eating species. And so visitors can come
Speaker 1: for free and take tours while they're there, and with
Speaker 1: the one note being that they're asked to wear clothes
Speaker 1: toe choose because you know, of course the plants do
Speaker 1: have feet, but what's crazy is that this is a
Speaker 1: with a lot of thefts. Actually, in fact, in two
Speaker 1: thousand thirteen, one thousand venus fly traps valued at twenty
Speaker 1: thousand dollars were stolen from this location alone, And while
Speaker 1: the criminals behind this plant heist were never caught, that's
Speaker 1: actually the crime that triggered making stealing anyone's venus fly
Speaker 1: trap of felony. Oh that's interesting, and I do kind
Speaker 1: of love the idea of a venus fly trying at heist,
Speaker 1: like I would love for the next Oceans eleven to
Speaker 1: be based on that. You know, I had a fact
Speaker 1: about furniture that's been made to eat insects and and
Speaker 1: even small rodents, and it's all based on flat traps.
Speaker 1: But I actually think we should end with flat trap man.
Speaker 1: I think he deserves the credit. So sorry, I got
Speaker 1: a little distracted because it actually looks like Tristan finally
Speaker 1: got the slim Jim to go down. That's oh no, wait,
Speaker 1: looks like he's eating at Tristan eight. That's amazing. That's
Speaker 1: that's really impressible, And I sorry, I got a little distracted.
Speaker 1: This was a fun episode to work on, but from
Speaker 1: trist and gave Mango and me thanks so much for listening.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, thanks again for listening. Part Time Genius is
Speaker 1: a production of how stuff works and wouldn't be possible
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