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Speaker 1: Guess what, mango?

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Speaker 2: What's that? Well?

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Speaker 1: So, did you ever have a venus fly trap as

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Speaker 1: a kid?

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Speaker 2: I did not. I mean my cousins Froshni and Rohan,

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Speaker 2: who are so cool, they had one.

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Speaker 1: But yeah, all the cool kids had one. It's true,

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Speaker 1: you know. I think one of the things I remember

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Speaker 1: most about it was how impossible it was to convince

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Speaker 1: my friends not to keep making it close up like

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Speaker 1: this one that I had. And it was just something

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Speaker 1: too satisfying about like taking a pencil or something like

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Speaker 1: that and triggering it to close up.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I feel like every kid who's been around one

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Speaker 2: is guilty of like trying to feed it something they shouldn't.

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Speaker 1: Well, And I was recently reminded of a little display

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Speaker 1: of these carnivorous plants that one of our teachers had

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Speaker 1: put out in front of her classroom. This was back

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Speaker 1: in third grade, and you know, there was some venus

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Speaker 1: fly traps and pitcher plants, of course a few others,

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Speaker 1: and it was weird how problematic this display became because

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Speaker 1: you had this one group of kids that just couldn't resist,

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Speaker 1: and so every day, at or any time they were outside,

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Speaker 1: they would try to find anythings to feed the plant

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Speaker 1: like insects, whatever they could find, and things got a

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Speaker 1: little out of hand when one day the teacher found

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Speaker 1: a matchbox car inside one of the picture plants.

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Speaker 2: I had no idea. I didn't think mashbox cars tasted

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Speaker 2: like meat.

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Speaker 1: Well me either, but apparently they did. But it really

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Speaker 1: did show just how impossible it is for a group

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Speaker 1: of kids to resist feeding these plants that they saw

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Speaker 1: as just being so exotic. And you know, keep in mind,

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Speaker 1: this was I think a year or two after the

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Speaker 1: remake of Little Shop of Horrors had come out, so

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Speaker 1: you know, this idea of a ferocious flesh eating plant

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Speaker 1: was it was kind of already in kids' minds, and

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Speaker 1: it actually led to the bigger problem, which was that

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Speaker 1: some of the older kids in the school were telling

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Speaker 1: some of the kindergarteners that these plants were going to

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Speaker 1: eat them. Of course, and it only took a couple

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Speaker 1: of kindergarteners who simply refused to walk past the display

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Speaker 1: to put it to an end, and the display disappeared

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Speaker 1: as quickly as it went up. Or else, I guess

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Speaker 1: it just got moved to the science plat, but either way,

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Speaker 1: it was no longer in the hallway for kids.

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Speaker 2: To say, poor kids. But you know, even if you're

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Speaker 2: horrified by the plants, like, there is something so fascinating

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Speaker 2: about them, right yeah, And it's what made us.

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Speaker 1: Want to tackle today's topic, you know, to talk about

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Speaker 1: things like the plant that Darwin described as the most

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Speaker 1: wonderful plant in the world, or to think about which

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Speaker 1: animal actually likes to spend its nights inside a picture plant,

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Speaker 1: and of course which state is the only one with

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Speaker 1: an official state carnivorous plant. There's so much to bid into,

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Speaker 1: so let's dive in. Hey, their podcast listeners, welcome to

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Speaker 1: part time Genius. I'm Will Pearson and as always by

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Speaker 1: my good friend mangesh hot Ticketter and on the other

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Speaker 1: side of the soundproof glass tending to his own venus

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Speaker 1: fly trap but trying to feed it. Is that a

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Speaker 1: slim It is a slim gym Oh wow, that's our

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Speaker 1: friends and producer Tristan McNeil.

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Speaker 2: I know I already told him I don't think it's

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Speaker 2: going to eat a slim tom, Tristan, but he just

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Speaker 2: looked me in the eye and said, meat is meat.

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Speaker 1: Kind of a weird catchphrase there, Tristan, But I mean

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Speaker 1: this is something that a lot of people are actually

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Speaker 1: curious about is what types of meat do Venus fly

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Speaker 1: traps preferred?

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Speaker 2: You know, yeah, so usually of course they go for

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Speaker 2: insects and spiders, though I did read that some fly

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Speaker 2: traps will occasionally catch a small frog for dinner. And

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Speaker 2: there are also these carnivorous pitcher plants and the Philippines

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Speaker 2: that are big enough to digest rats and shrews.

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Speaker 1: Wow, so that's actually true, then, is that something that

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Speaker 1: happens often?

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Speaker 2: Not exactly, so, frogs and rodents are pretty big meals

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Speaker 2: for carnivorous plants. Basically, it's like a I don't know,

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Speaker 2: like if if human ate an entire cow or something, right,

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Speaker 2: it's not something that we do very often, just because

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Speaker 2: of how much time and energy it takes to digest

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Speaker 2: something that huge.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't need an entire cow every day. I

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Speaker 1: feel like that's just more of a sometimes food for

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Speaker 1: special occasions, the full cow. But I mean, seriously, though,

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Speaker 1: how amazing is it that there are plants that can

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Speaker 1: actually eat animals? I mean, it's kind of terrifying, but

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Speaker 1: it's also pretty incredible.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, It's one of those things that always measures to

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Speaker 2: amaze me. And creep me out, like every time I

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Speaker 2: think about it. You know, it also just seems so

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Speaker 2: unplant like. Uh, it feels like, you know, a plant

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Speaker 2: that hunts and traps and kills and digests the meal.

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Speaker 2: Like those aren't plant activities. I don't mean to stereotype, but.

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Speaker 1: And that's why today's show was such a fun one

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Speaker 1: to put together, because so much of what we found

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Speaker 1: out was just completely unexpected. So today we'll be answering

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Speaker 1: all sorts of bizarre questions that most of us have

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Speaker 1: never thought to ask, things like why did carnivorous plants

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Speaker 1: evolve a taste for meat? The venus fly traps really

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Speaker 1: know how to count? And how come Thomas Jefferson was

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Speaker 1: so obsessed with meat eating plants. There's a lot to

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Speaker 1: cover today, but where do you think you want to start?

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Speaker 2: Mango, So, one of the things we should probably get

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Speaker 2: out of the way right up front is why carnivorous

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Speaker 2: plants eat meat in the first place.

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Speaker 1: I think it's clearly because they're evil. We talked about

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Speaker 1: the timing of the movie Little Shop of Bars. If

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Speaker 1: that's scientifically speaking, I think that is the answer, right.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, So, you know, one weird thing is I've never

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Speaker 2: seen that movie as strange as it is, but uh,

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Speaker 2: and I know it's beloved. But you know, for actual

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Speaker 2: carnivorous plants, meat isn't really what they're after. Like, they

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Speaker 2: don't capture live prey for the thrill of the hunt

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Speaker 2: or whatever, or for the taste for that matter. You know,

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Speaker 2: as you can guess, they're just doing it as a

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Speaker 2: way to obtain important nutrients like nitrogen and phosphorus.

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Speaker 1: I mean, but it feels like there's got to be

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Speaker 1: an easier way to get those nutrients, Like why not

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Speaker 1: just absorb them through their roots like those nice, you know,

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Speaker 1: peaceful plants that are out there.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, that's right. I mean, it is kind of an

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Speaker 2: extreme measure when you think about it, but they had

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Speaker 2: to develop that way because carnivorous plants tend to live

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Speaker 2: in places where the soil is really thin and poor

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Speaker 2: in nutrients, so they might think of like a swamp

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Speaker 2: or a bog. And since the plants can't get what

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Speaker 2: they need from the soil alone, they get it by

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Speaker 2: digesting this live prey. Basically, the nutrients that come for

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Speaker 2: the prey help the plant grow faster and increase their

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Speaker 2: reproductive odds.

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Speaker 1: All right, So if the meeting and trait was an

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Speaker 1: evolutionary response to poor soil, then where did the carnivorous

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Speaker 1: plants first come from? Because I'm just curious which part

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Speaker 1: of the world had soil so bad that the plants

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Speaker 1: were having to figure out, like how to eat flies

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Speaker 1: and stuff like that, just to figure out how to survive.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, carnivorous plants are native to places all

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Speaker 2: over the world. In fact, you can find them on

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Speaker 2: every continent but Antarctica. And it's interesting because it suggests

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Speaker 2: that throughout history plant species have evolved carnivorous tendencies again

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Speaker 2: and again. In fact, that they've done it no less

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Speaker 2: than nine times according to researchers, And any place in

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Speaker 2: the world that had lousy enough soil basically became this

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Speaker 2: breeding ground for carnivorous plants. And today they're actually about

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Speaker 2: six hundred unique species worldwide.

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Speaker 1: Oh wow, So you're saying that each of those six

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Speaker 1: hundred can be traced back to one of you know,

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Speaker 1: ten or so common ancestors.

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Speaker 2: That's right, because even though several different plant species hit

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Speaker 2: upon the idea of eating meat, they came up with

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Speaker 2: totally different, like kinds of traps for sourcing that meat.

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Speaker 2: You know, we're probably most familiar with venus fly traps,

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Speaker 2: which have those spring trap jaws and that they used

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Speaker 2: to snare their prey. But uh, you know, other carnivorous

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Speaker 2: plants have their own strategies. There's there's the sundew plant,

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Speaker 2: which uses a bunch of sticky tentacles to like grab

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Speaker 2: passing bugs. And there's something called the butterwort, which has

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Speaker 2: this broad, flat leaf and and that kind of acts

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Speaker 2: as like a fly paper, so an insect gets stuck

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Speaker 2: in place, and then the leaf glands cover the bug

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Speaker 2: and digestive mucus, and you know, all the nutrients are

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Speaker 2: then absorbed straight into the leaf.

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Speaker 1: Oh a nightmare. It's like being chained to a wall

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Speaker 1: while the wall eats you. It's just not something pleasant

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Speaker 1: to think about.

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Speaker 2: The wall is drifting this gross goole over you're at

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Speaker 2: the same day. You know. As memorable as the butterwarts

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Speaker 2: trap is, my favorite carnivorous plant is the pitcher plant,

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Speaker 2: and they're probably the second most known next to the

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Speaker 2: flat traffs. They have these specialized leaves that use color

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Speaker 2: and also scent to draw insects to their picture, like organs,

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Speaker 2: and then thanks to all these downward facing hairs on

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Speaker 2: the leaves, the insects aren't able to crawl back out. Instead,

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Speaker 2: they just slip into this deadly enzyme bat that slowly

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Speaker 2: digests them.

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Speaker 1: Well, I can see why that's your favorite. I mean,

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Speaker 1: who doesn't love the old dunkem in a tub of

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Speaker 1: acid routine? And it's impressive.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, But I mean I get that it's gruesome, but

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Speaker 2: I kind of like how well designed it is, right, Like,

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Speaker 2: it's super tricky. And you know, picture plants can be

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Speaker 2: gross too. They don't actually have a way of expelling

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Speaker 2: their waist, so as the plant gets older, it's picture

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Speaker 2: just kind of fills up with all these indigestible insect

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Speaker 2: parts until it kind of becomes this big bug graveyard.

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Speaker 2: And while the picture plants acid bad sounds like kind

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Speaker 2: of bad. The thing is like all carnivorous plants rely

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Speaker 2: on some kind of chemical cocktail to digest their prey

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Speaker 2: fly traps, inject it into the chambers where they trap

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Speaker 2: their prey butterwarts, as we mentioned, secrete it through their leaves.

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Speaker 2: And in fact, there was a study last year out

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Speaker 2: of the University of Buffalo and it shows just how

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Speaker 2: similar this technique is across species. Basically, it proved that

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Speaker 2: different carnivorous plants, including ones that were only distantly related,

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Speaker 2: all use the same molecular recipe for digestive fluids. And

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Speaker 2: that's despite the fact that some of these plants are

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Speaker 2: native to different continents and evolved separately over the course

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Speaker 2: of millions of years.

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Speaker 1: Oh wow, that's interesting. So I guess they took fluid

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Speaker 1: samples and compared them across species or something.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly, and they found that all the plants relied

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Speaker 2: on similar enzymes. But what was even more amazing was

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Speaker 2: that the enzymes aren't unique to carnivorous plants. They're actually

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Speaker 2: used by non carnivorous plants as a way to fight

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Speaker 2: off pathogens.

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Speaker 1: All right, so then when the carnivorous plants kind of

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Speaker 1: adapted and repurposed the enzymes for use in digestion, But

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Speaker 1: I mean, how did that work? Exactly?

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Speaker 2: The example I came across is this polymer called kitan,

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Speaker 2: and apparently it's what the cell walls of fungi are

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Speaker 2: made from. So plants obviously don't want a bunch of

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Speaker 2: fungi growing on their roots and choking the life out

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Speaker 2: of them, So they produce this special enzyme to break

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Speaker 2: the kitan down and keep these funguses at bay. But

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Speaker 2: in the case of carnivorous plants, that enzyme has been

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Speaker 2: repurposed to eat away like insect exoskeletons, and that also

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Speaker 2: happens to be made of kitan. So it's a pretty

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Speaker 2: wild case of plants kind of reprogramming their existing genes

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Speaker 2: to suit this more meat loving lifestyle. Huh.

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Speaker 1: All right, so maybe all carnivorous plants share this same

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Speaker 1: gross bond, But I still think you need to convince

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Speaker 1: me a little bit more about picture plants.

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Speaker 2: You're really on this is.

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Speaker 1: That we know that flooded graveyard you described has to

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Speaker 1: make them like fifty times grosser than the other meat

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Speaker 1: eaters that are out there. It's just kind of weird.

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Speaker 2: Well, what if I told you that a pitcher plant

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Speaker 2: is actually a cradle of life?

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Speaker 1: You'd just be making up words? What do you mean

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Speaker 1: by that?

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Speaker 2: So one of the things I'm surprised to learn is

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Speaker 2: that there are actually some species of super tiny frogs

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Speaker 2: that lay their eggs in the safety of a picture plant,

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Speaker 2: and then when they hatch these baby tadpoles spend their

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Speaker 2: first weeks of life swimming in that murky water, right

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Speaker 2: up until they're old enough to sort of hop out

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Speaker 2: and strike out on their own. You know. There's also

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Speaker 2: a mammal in Borneo that just likes to cozy up

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Speaker 2: to pitcher plants. It's called the common wooly bat, and

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Speaker 2: apparently one of its favorite places the sleep is snuggled

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Speaker 2: up inside a pitcher plant.

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Speaker 1: Wait, it actually sleeps inside the picture, Like, why would

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Speaker 1: it want to sleep in a bunch of dead bug water?

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Speaker 1: What's the incentive there?

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Speaker 2: Well, that's what makes this particular species so special, So

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Speaker 2: it actually grows two different kinds of pictures. The first

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Speaker 2: is your standard bug catching picture. It's close to the ground,

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Speaker 2: it smells sweet, and it's filled with these digestive fluids.

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Speaker 2: But the second type of picture is designed especially for bats.

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Speaker 2: It's higher up, it's dry inside, and its shaped almost

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Speaker 2: like a little reflector dish so that the bats can

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Speaker 2: easily spot it with their sonar.

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Speaker 1: Huh, Well, what's so special about bats? Like why would

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Speaker 1: the plants kind of roll out the red carpet just

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Speaker 1: just for them?

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Speaker 2: I guess it's that the plants are actually after the

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Speaker 2: guana or you know, the bat waste, and every time

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Speaker 2: the bats spend the night, they relieve themselves and leave

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Speaker 2: nutrients for the plants to absorb. So it's kind of

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Speaker 2: like a bat hotel where everyone just pays for the

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Speaker 2: room with feces.

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Speaker 1: Oh, a disgusting business model, but whatever works. But I mean,

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Speaker 1: I think you sort of brought me around on the

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Speaker 1: picture plants. They are pretty enterprising, I have to give

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Speaker 1: you that they are.

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Speaker 2: And you know, picture plants aren't the only ones either.

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Speaker 2: You know, carnivorous plants in general have this alien kind

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Speaker 2: of cleverness about them, where when you look at the

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Speaker 2: level of ingenuity and precision on you know, how they

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Speaker 2: display their traps, it's kind of easy to forget you're

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Speaker 2: dealing with a plant and not some kind of intelligent animal.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I know what you mean, And you know, I

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Speaker 1: think the venus fly trap would probably be a good

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Speaker 1: example of the kind of we have, the kind of

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Speaker 1: intelligence that you're talking about. So what do you say

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Speaker 1: we take a closer look at what makes those tick?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, and that sounds great, But first let's take a

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Speaker 2: quick break.

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Speaker 1: You're listening to Part Time Genius and we're talking about

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Speaker 1: the cutthroat world of carnivorous plants. You know, despite their

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Speaker 1: violent tendencies, meetating plants have had their fair share of

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Speaker 1: admirers over the years. You know. Charles Darwin, for instance,

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Speaker 1: was a big fan of carnivorous plants, and honestly, maybe

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Speaker 1: too big of a fan. He wrote an entire book

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Speaker 1: about them, and at one point he even declares the

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Speaker 1: venus fly trap to be the most wonderful plant in

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Speaker 1: the world. He also went to bat for the plants

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Speaker 1: against scientists who weren't as enthusiastic about meat eating plants

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Speaker 1: as he was. Like, you remember those sundew things that

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Speaker 1: you mentioned earlier, the plants with the sticky tentacles. Well,

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Speaker 1: apparently Darwin knew a botanist who didn't think sundews were

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Speaker 1: anything to ride home about. So Darwin sent a note

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Speaker 1: to the guy saying, quote, you are unjust on the

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Speaker 1: merits of my beloved sundw. It is a wonderful plant,

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Speaker 1: or rather a most sagacious animal. I will stick up

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Speaker 1: for the sund to the day of my death.

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Speaker 2: I mean, it does sound like he was really smitten.

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Speaker 2: And it's funny because Thomas Jefferson had a similar fascination

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Speaker 2: with flat traps, though I don't think he ever got

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Speaker 2: to study them up close the way Darwin did.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, that's true, but I mean it's not for lack

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Speaker 1: of trying. I was actually looking into this a little

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Speaker 1: and it turns out that Jefferson had an especially tough

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Speaker 1: time tracking down his own venus fly traps. It's a

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Speaker 1: little weird because you have to consider that some venus

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Speaker 1: flytrap species are actually native to the Carolinas. In fact,

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Speaker 1: this is a little bit random. But North Carolina is

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Speaker 1: the only state to select an official state carnivorous plant,

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Speaker 1: and that is, of course, the venus flytrap.

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Speaker 2: What a great fact, you know, it is very smart

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Speaker 2: of North Carolina to have snapped up that the first

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Speaker 2: round of the carnivorous plant draft exactly. But did you know,

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Speaker 2: I want to talk about Jefferson more. Did he ever

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Speaker 2: get his hands on a fly trap?

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Speaker 1: Well, we actually don't know for certain. I mean, what

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Speaker 1: we do know is that Jefferson started a letter campaign

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Speaker 1: back in seventeen eighty six, and he was requesting that

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Speaker 1: multiple people send him either fly trap seeds or fully

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Speaker 1: grown plants as soon as possible. I guess this was

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Speaker 1: an urgent matter, and unfortunately, the plants were so hard

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Speaker 1: to come by and the postal service was so unreliable

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Speaker 1: back then that Jefferson didn't actually get his hands on

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Speaker 1: the seeds until a full eight years later. So on

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Speaker 1: January eighteen oh four, President Jefferson wrote a letter to

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Speaker 1: Timothy Bloodworth saying, I thank you for the seed of

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Speaker 1: the fly trap. It is the first I have ever

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Speaker 1: been able to obtain, and shall take great care of it.

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Speaker 2: So he finally got it. Then, Yeah, he definitely.

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Speaker 1: Got some seeds in eighteen oh four, but unfortunately the

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Speaker 1: trail goes cold after that until like eighteen oh nine

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Speaker 1: or so, and Jefferson writes his last mention of fly

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Speaker 1: trap in this manuscript that's about gardening, and it's it's

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Speaker 1: kind of an ominous but a little bit confusing of

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Speaker 1: an entry. So he simply wrote, sewed seeds of Diania

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Speaker 1: mascupula in a pot. They were several years old.

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Speaker 2: So I'm guessing nothing came of that, but it's kind

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Speaker 2: of amazing that he didn't bothered, Like, after what eight

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Speaker 2: years he was asking for these seeds, he finally got them,

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Speaker 2: and then he didn't bother them to plant them for

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Speaker 2: like another five years. Like, yeah, I'm kind of questioning

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Speaker 2: his commitment to the plants.

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Speaker 1: I guess, so it feels a little odd, But you

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Speaker 1: might want to excuse him because he probably got a

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Speaker 1: little bit busy with the whole Louisiana purchase thing, got

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Speaker 1: a little distracted. But you know, one thing that Jefferson

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Speaker 1: and Darwin would both have liked is a recent study

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Speaker 1: that showed that the venus fly trap actually knows how

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Speaker 1: to count.

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Speaker 2: So what does that mean exactly? Like, what is it counting?

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Speaker 1: Well, actually a few things, but I feel like we

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Speaker 1: got to backup just a little bit to understand how

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Speaker 1: the fly trap functions. So, for starters, each plant has

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Speaker 1: multiple each of which is made of these specialized leaves

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Speaker 1: covered in these tiny sensory hairs. And so the leaves

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Speaker 1: of the trap, as we mentioned, secrete this sweet smelling

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Speaker 1: nectar to help lure in those hungry insects. And when

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Speaker 1: one of these visitors brushes against the plant's sensory hairs,

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Speaker 1: the trap can actually snap shut within a tenth of

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Speaker 1: a second. So then after the digestive period that lasts

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Speaker 1: a week or longer, the trap reopens and the husk

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Speaker 1: of the insect blows away, while the process starts all

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Speaker 1: over again. So each trap catches about three bugs before

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Speaker 1: it wears out and then really has to be replaced.

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Speaker 1: But again, since the plant uses multiple traps at once,

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Speaker 1: they never have to miss a meal.

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Speaker 2: I like how poetic that sounds. The husk of the

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Speaker 2: insect blows away. Beautiful, But you know it also sounds

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Speaker 2: like the system kind of runs like clockwork. But I'm

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Speaker 2: kind of curious still, where does the counting come in?

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Speaker 1: Well, clockwork actually isn't a bad analogy, because the actions

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Speaker 1: of the fly trap are basically mecanic. I mean, their

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Speaker 1: movements aren't directed by any kind of consciousness or anything

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Speaker 1: like that. But it doesn't mean there isn't some sort

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Speaker 1: of calculation that's going on. So, for instance, fly traps

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Speaker 1: can actually count the number of times that their prey

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Speaker 1: comes in contact with the sensory hairs that are on

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Speaker 1: its leaves, and each of those touches brings about its

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Speaker 1: own unique reaction. So in the very first touch, for example,

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Speaker 1: the plant actually does nothing. And this makes sense if

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Speaker 1: you think about it, because you know, a single touch

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Speaker 1: could be a false alarm. You could have a rain

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Speaker 1: drop or a falling leaf or you know, bait from

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Speaker 1: a slim gym or something like that, but essentially something

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Speaker 1: that wouldn't be worth the energy of closing the trap.

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Speaker 1: So instead the plant waits, and it waits on that

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Speaker 1: second signal, and if one arrives within the next twenty seconds,

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Speaker 1: then the trapped spring shot on what is hopefully this nice,

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Speaker 1: juicy cricket or something. So it really is pretty amazing

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Speaker 1: how it does function like clockwork.

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Speaker 2: That's fascinating. So the first touch kind of sets off

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Speaker 2: this kind of internal timer in the plant, which is

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Speaker 2: pretty wild.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, but the plant actually doesn't even stop there. I mean,

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Speaker 1: it keeps on counting. So after the trap is sprung,

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Speaker 1: the prey is still alive and it keeps on struggling,

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Speaker 1: and as it does so, it bumps into the trigger

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Speaker 1: hairs even more so. The third and fourth touches send

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Speaker 1: these electrical impulses to help prepare the trap for digestion.

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Speaker 1: Then the fifth touch tells the gland cells and the

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Speaker 1: trap to begin producing digestive enzymes, and so from there,

402
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Speaker 1: each additional touch produces these proportionally you know, greater enzymes

403
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Speaker 1: being created, you know, in order to help digest the

404
00:19:35,040 --> 00:19:38,000
Speaker 1: food there, So the more an insect struggles, or the

405
00:19:38,040 --> 00:19:40,840
Speaker 1: bigger and stronger it is, you know, it'll mean that

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Speaker 1: the plant has to release more enzymes in order to

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Speaker 1: fully digest it. And it's crazy to think about because

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Speaker 1: the fact that the fly is fighting for its life

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Speaker 1: is actually the very thing that brings about its death.

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Speaker 1: And the harder it fights, the more the plant learns

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Speaker 1: how to kill it. It's it's pretty wild.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I didn't realize Flahauts were so methought their murders.

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Speaker 1: I guess it's true, but I mean, if it's any consolation, though,

414
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Speaker 1: the captured insect isn't alive as it's being digested, and

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Speaker 1: that's because the trap is actually hermetically sealed after you know,

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Speaker 1: a few hours, so the insect has run out of

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Speaker 1: air well before this digestive fluid is pumped in to

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Speaker 1: kind of do its thing.

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Speaker 2: Which I guess is a little more humane. But I

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Speaker 2: am curious how the plant knows when its prey is

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Speaker 2: fully digested, Like does it count out like one hundred

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Speaker 2: mississippis and then just spits it out?

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Speaker 1: You know, I think plants count by mississippis as well.

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Speaker 1: It's pretty it's an amazing fact about nature like that.

425
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Speaker 1: It's actually a little more nuanced than that. I mean,

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Speaker 1: the inside of the trap is lined with chemical sensors

427
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Speaker 1: that detect the kitan and a bugshell and all the

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00:20:45,040 --> 00:20:47,879
Speaker 1: nutrients and its blood. So the plant just keeps on

429
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Speaker 1: digesting until it can't detect that stuff anymore. And once

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Speaker 1: the taste of kiten and nitrogen is gone, the plant

431
00:20:55,320 --> 00:20:58,040
Speaker 1: knows the bug is tapped and it's time to find

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Speaker 1: something else to eat.

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Speaker 2: So I think what's the most interesting about this to

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Speaker 2: me is that I feel like I'm just picking up

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Speaker 2: valuable tips if I ever have to face off against

436
00:21:05,680 --> 00:21:08,760
Speaker 2: like a giant venus fly trap, because and you know,

437
00:21:08,840 --> 00:21:10,840
Speaker 2: maybe I'm wrong here, but it sounds like if you're

438
00:21:10,920 --> 00:21:13,800
Speaker 2: ever caught in a fly trap, you should just be patient, right, Like,

439
00:21:14,080 --> 00:21:17,600
Speaker 2: if you just only moved once every twenty seconds or so,

440
00:21:17,840 --> 00:21:19,960
Speaker 2: you could probably get out of there without springing the trap.

441
00:21:20,240 --> 00:21:22,359
Speaker 1: Well, and even if you did get caught in the trap,

442
00:21:22,400 --> 00:21:25,200
Speaker 1: if you stayed still and waited long enough, the digestion

443
00:21:25,440 --> 00:21:28,440
Speaker 1: would would never begin and the trap would just reopen

444
00:21:28,480 --> 00:21:31,480
Speaker 1: the next morning. So, you know, just for our listeners

445
00:21:31,480 --> 00:21:34,119
Speaker 1: and the off chance you ever encounter a man eating

446
00:21:34,200 --> 00:21:36,240
Speaker 1: fly trap. Now you know exactly what to do.

447
00:21:37,280 --> 00:21:40,000
Speaker 2: Well, as long as we're on the subject official fly traps,

448
00:21:40,240 --> 00:21:42,000
Speaker 2: why don't we spend some time on a few of

449
00:21:42,040 --> 00:21:44,879
Speaker 2: the myths and the legends about carnivorous plants that have

450
00:21:44,920 --> 00:22:03,160
Speaker 2: sprung up over the years. But first, let's take another break, all.

451
00:22:03,119 --> 00:22:05,040
Speaker 1: Right, mengo, So since you brought up man eating fly

452
00:22:05,160 --> 00:22:07,840
Speaker 1: traps again, I thought we should settle the age old

453
00:22:07,840 --> 00:22:10,719
Speaker 1: debate and answer once and for all whether or not

454
00:22:10,760 --> 00:22:15,000
Speaker 1: a venus fly trap can really digest human flesh. If

455
00:22:15,320 --> 00:22:17,080
Speaker 1: any guesses on this foot, so I.

456
00:22:17,040 --> 00:22:19,800
Speaker 2: Would rather not have to watch my back around a houseplant.

457
00:22:19,880 --> 00:22:23,359
Speaker 2: So I want to believe that they can't. But I

458
00:22:23,400 --> 00:22:25,560
Speaker 2: guess there's no reason why they couldn't. Write. I mean,

459
00:22:26,160 --> 00:22:28,280
Speaker 2: they wouldn't be able to swallow a whole person or anything,

460
00:22:28,280 --> 00:22:30,080
Speaker 2: but if you threw a little bit of skin in there,

461
00:22:30,200 --> 00:22:31,719
Speaker 2: it feels like the plant could probably eat it.

462
00:22:32,119 --> 00:22:34,119
Speaker 1: It's actually true. I mean, it turns out that the

463
00:22:34,119 --> 00:22:37,280
Speaker 1: fly trap can eat a person so long as they

464
00:22:37,280 --> 00:22:39,240
Speaker 1: were fed, you know, just a gram or two at

465
00:22:39,240 --> 00:22:42,080
Speaker 1: a time. And this is something we know thanks to

466
00:22:42,119 --> 00:22:45,800
Speaker 1: a carnivorous plant enthusiast named Barry rice. And no, Barry

467
00:22:45,840 --> 00:22:47,760
Speaker 1: did not chop up a bunch of people and feed

468
00:22:47,760 --> 00:22:50,800
Speaker 1: them to his plants. But just about seven years ago,

469
00:22:50,920 --> 00:22:54,960
Speaker 1: Barry did contract this mean case of athletes, and that

470
00:22:55,080 --> 00:22:58,600
Speaker 1: gave him the idea for an experiment. He decided to

471
00:22:58,640 --> 00:23:02,000
Speaker 1: tear off some of his loop toe skin and feed

472
00:23:02,040 --> 00:23:04,719
Speaker 1: it to one of his venus fly traps, just you know,

473
00:23:04,800 --> 00:23:07,480
Speaker 1: just to see what would happen. So he triggered the

474
00:23:07,520 --> 00:23:10,680
Speaker 1: trap to clothes and about a week later it reopened

475
00:23:11,080 --> 00:23:14,040
Speaker 1: with just a tiny bit of half digested skin goo

476
00:23:14,200 --> 00:23:17,960
Speaker 1: left inside, and the rest had been completely digested and

477
00:23:18,000 --> 00:23:19,399
Speaker 1: the plant was totally fine.

478
00:23:19,520 --> 00:23:21,240
Speaker 2: That is so gross, and just the idea that you

479
00:23:21,280 --> 00:23:23,160
Speaker 2: put a little bit of toaskin in there no hot

480
00:23:23,200 --> 00:23:26,639
Speaker 2: sauce or salt or condiments, that's right. I do have

481
00:23:26,680 --> 00:23:28,880
Speaker 2: to admit it is kind of cool that we're still

482
00:23:28,920 --> 00:23:31,880
Speaker 2: finding out new things about these plants after all these years, right,

483
00:23:32,000 --> 00:23:33,959
Speaker 2: Like even if one of those things is that they

484
00:23:33,960 --> 00:23:35,160
Speaker 2: could potentially eat our feet.

485
00:23:36,600 --> 00:23:38,680
Speaker 1: You know. Another big question I've had is how did

486
00:23:38,720 --> 00:23:41,679
Speaker 1: the venus fly trap get their name? And I mean

487
00:23:41,720 --> 00:23:44,240
Speaker 1: the fly trap part makes sense, but how does the

488
00:23:44,320 --> 00:23:46,359
Speaker 1: venus fit in? Like is it a reference to the

489
00:23:46,400 --> 00:23:49,480
Speaker 1: goddess of love or to the planet, because to be honest,

490
00:23:49,520 --> 00:23:51,840
Speaker 1: neither one really makes full sense to me.

491
00:23:52,240 --> 00:23:54,639
Speaker 2: Yeah, I was curious about that too, but I couldn't

492
00:23:54,640 --> 00:23:57,879
Speaker 2: find anything definitive. Some naturalists say the name comes from

493
00:23:57,920 --> 00:24:01,000
Speaker 2: the white flowers and these ornate leaves that the plant produces,

494
00:24:01,359 --> 00:24:04,200
Speaker 2: and supposedly they were so beautiful and feminine that people

495
00:24:04,240 --> 00:24:07,560
Speaker 2: began to associate them with the goddess Venus. However, there's

496
00:24:07,600 --> 00:24:10,880
Speaker 2: another theory that many historians subscribe to, and that one's

497
00:24:10,880 --> 00:24:13,960
Speaker 2: a little dirtier. Apparently, a bunch of naturalists in the

498
00:24:14,000 --> 00:24:18,119
Speaker 2: late seventeen hundreds they thought the plant's trap was, you know,

499
00:24:18,240 --> 00:24:22,399
Speaker 2: kind of resembled a female genitalia, so they started calling

500
00:24:22,440 --> 00:24:26,640
Speaker 2: it tippity twitchet, which is not a term I learned

501
00:24:26,680 --> 00:24:31,159
Speaker 2: in health class. This was the seventeen hundreds and it

502
00:24:31,160 --> 00:24:34,040
Speaker 2: was a different time. But you know, a few years later,

503
00:24:34,200 --> 00:24:37,360
Speaker 2: someone decided to class up the allusion to femininity and

504
00:24:37,400 --> 00:24:39,240
Speaker 2: they gave it the name of a goddess instead.

505
00:24:39,520 --> 00:24:43,480
Speaker 1: Those naturalists are just a bunch of cards. I think

506
00:24:43,480 --> 00:24:45,840
Speaker 1: I'd rather stick with the Little Shop of Horror's origin

507
00:24:45,880 --> 00:24:48,240
Speaker 1: story and just say that the plants are actually aliens.

508
00:24:48,240 --> 00:24:51,440
Speaker 1: From outer space and I guess the planet Venus presumably.

509
00:24:51,840 --> 00:24:53,960
Speaker 2: Yeah, so you know, a hundred years ago, you wouldn't

510
00:24:54,000 --> 00:24:56,520
Speaker 2: have been alone in that theory. So back then we

511
00:24:56,560 --> 00:24:59,560
Speaker 2: didn't know much about the surface of Venus, and all

512
00:24:59,560 --> 00:25:01,960
Speaker 2: you could see through a telescope was this thick blanket

513
00:25:02,000 --> 00:25:05,600
Speaker 2: of clouds. So a ton of researchers speculated that Venus

514
00:25:05,640 --> 00:25:10,240
Speaker 2: might be this steamy planet covered with lush jungle landscape,

515
00:25:10,760 --> 00:25:14,920
Speaker 2: and you know, this really sparked the public's imagination. Sci

516
00:25:14,960 --> 00:25:17,880
Speaker 2: fi writers began depicting the planet as this I guess,

517
00:25:17,880 --> 00:25:21,120
Speaker 2: this world of carnivorous plants, and of course that theory

518
00:25:21,119 --> 00:25:23,520
Speaker 2: fell to the wayside. One scientist actually could see the

519
00:25:23,520 --> 00:25:27,399
Speaker 2: planet's surface and realized that it's actually a bomby nine

520
00:25:27,560 --> 00:25:30,200
Speaker 2: hundred degrees or so on it. So, you know, that

521
00:25:30,520 --> 00:25:31,919
Speaker 2: isn't great for supporting life.

522
00:25:32,160 --> 00:25:32,560
Speaker 1: Aw.

523
00:25:33,000 --> 00:25:33,160
Speaker 2: Yeah.

524
00:25:33,200 --> 00:25:35,000
Speaker 1: It seems like there was a period from about the

525
00:25:35,080 --> 00:25:38,359
Speaker 1: eighteen eighties to the mid nineteen hundreds when these stories

526
00:25:38,359 --> 00:25:41,520
Speaker 1: of man eating plants were really all the rage. And

527
00:25:41,920 --> 00:25:44,040
Speaker 1: you know, one of the most famous instances was also

528
00:25:44,080 --> 00:25:47,639
Speaker 1: the first depiction of carnivorous plants in pop culture. That

529
00:25:47,760 --> 00:25:51,200
Speaker 1: was supposedly this first hand account from a German explorer

530
00:25:51,240 --> 00:25:54,320
Speaker 1: and scientist, and in eighteen eighty one he claimed to

531
00:25:54,359 --> 00:25:57,760
Speaker 1: have witnessed the ceremony in which this tribe in Madagascar

532
00:25:57,840 --> 00:26:02,040
Speaker 1: actually sacrificed a woman to this enormous flesh eating tree,

533
00:26:02,560 --> 00:26:05,040
Speaker 1: and he described the plant as having a base like

534
00:26:05,119 --> 00:26:08,880
Speaker 1: that of a pineapple, with eight long spiky leaves and

535
00:26:09,359 --> 00:26:12,960
Speaker 1: six powerful tendrils that could wrap around a victim, kind

536
00:26:12,960 --> 00:26:14,280
Speaker 1: of like snakes would I guess.

537
00:26:14,520 --> 00:26:17,000
Speaker 2: And this was published as if it was a true story,

538
00:26:17,040 --> 00:26:17,760
Speaker 2: like in newspapers.

539
00:26:18,119 --> 00:26:21,679
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean newspapers, magazines, science journals, you name it.

540
00:26:21,720 --> 00:26:25,280
Speaker 1: And other explorers confirmed this story over the years, though

541
00:26:25,640 --> 00:26:28,199
Speaker 1: none of them ever provided any hard evidence of what

542
00:26:28,240 --> 00:26:30,879
Speaker 1: they claimed to have seen, and the reports were just

543
00:26:30,960 --> 00:26:33,639
Speaker 1: accepted as fact for decades, all the way up until

544
00:26:33,800 --> 00:26:36,880
Speaker 1: you know, like the mid nineteen fifties, when this science

545
00:26:36,920 --> 00:26:40,400
Speaker 1: writer named Willie Lay finally debunked this whole thing as

546
00:26:40,400 --> 00:26:41,080
Speaker 1: being a hoax.

547
00:26:41,760 --> 00:26:43,879
Speaker 2: So, I guess this was all made up as a

548
00:26:43,880 --> 00:26:46,000
Speaker 2: way to like make money or something.

549
00:26:46,200 --> 00:26:49,840
Speaker 1: Well, somebody made the story up, but it actually wasn't

550
00:26:49,840 --> 00:26:52,480
Speaker 1: the story's author, And in the end, the German explorer

551
00:26:52,600 --> 00:26:55,520
Speaker 1: turned out to be just as fake as the tribe

552
00:26:55,680 --> 00:26:59,080
Speaker 1: and the plant itself, and so nobody really knows who

553
00:26:59,280 --> 00:27:02,240
Speaker 1: was behind the hoax, but whoever it was, helped cement

554
00:27:02,320 --> 00:27:06,159
Speaker 1: these carnivorous plants and the popular culture for decades after,

555
00:27:06,920 --> 00:27:09,800
Speaker 1: and without this man eating tree of Madagascar to pave

556
00:27:09,840 --> 00:27:12,280
Speaker 1: the way, we may never have gotten the genre classics

557
00:27:12,359 --> 00:27:15,360
Speaker 1: like Little Shop of Cars or some of the others, which, obviously,

558
00:27:15,400 --> 00:27:17,600
Speaker 1: as you said earlier, made such an impact on you.

559
00:27:19,000 --> 00:27:21,600
Speaker 2: So you know what I find really strange is for

560
00:27:21,720 --> 00:27:24,440
Speaker 2: all the stories we've concocted about the threat of carnivorous

561
00:27:24,440 --> 00:27:27,560
Speaker 2: plants and how creepy most people seem to find them,

562
00:27:27,840 --> 00:27:29,560
Speaker 2: the plants are really the ones that should be afraid

563
00:27:29,560 --> 00:27:30,840
Speaker 2: of us, not the other way around.

564
00:27:31,160 --> 00:27:32,040
Speaker 1: Oh what do you mean by that?

565
00:27:32,119 --> 00:27:36,359
Speaker 2: Well, matchbox cars for starters, But right, of course. But

566
00:27:36,480 --> 00:27:38,440
Speaker 2: one thing I came across this week is that many

567
00:27:38,440 --> 00:27:42,200
Speaker 2: carnivorous plant species are endangered, possibly as many as half

568
00:27:42,240 --> 00:27:45,240
Speaker 2: of all known species, and as you might guess, humans

569
00:27:45,240 --> 00:27:48,080
Speaker 2: are the biggest threat they face, from habitat loss to

570
00:27:48,119 --> 00:27:51,160
Speaker 2: pollution to even poaching. And we're just making things really

571
00:27:51,160 --> 00:27:53,680
Speaker 2: difficult for me eating plants, say.

572
00:27:53,480 --> 00:27:57,639
Speaker 1: Poaching, So people poach these carnivorous plants. Yeah, it's actually

573
00:27:57,680 --> 00:27:58,880
Speaker 1: a huge problem.

574
00:27:59,040 --> 00:28:02,040
Speaker 2: So if you take venus fly traps, for instance, you

575
00:28:02,080 --> 00:28:04,480
Speaker 2: remember how Jefferson had such a hard time sourcing them

576
00:28:04,880 --> 00:28:06,960
Speaker 2: even though he lived just one state north of their

577
00:28:07,040 --> 00:28:10,280
Speaker 2: native habitat. I mean that's because while fly traps grow

578
00:28:10,320 --> 00:28:14,400
Speaker 2: in this extremely limited area, there's a seventy five mile

579
00:28:14,560 --> 00:28:17,800
Speaker 2: range in and around Wilmington, North Carolina, and even within

580
00:28:17,880 --> 00:28:19,280
Speaker 2: that area, the plants are really rare.

581
00:28:19,760 --> 00:28:21,400
Speaker 1: All right, So did the plants go for a lot

582
00:28:21,440 --> 00:28:23,160
Speaker 1: of money or something, because I feel like you can

583
00:28:23,200 --> 00:28:25,879
Speaker 1: find them pretty cheap if you just go to greenhouses,

584
00:28:25,920 --> 00:28:28,560
Speaker 1: and they're even in those children science kids like that,

585
00:28:28,640 --> 00:28:30,800
Speaker 1: you see. Sometimes I'm a little confused by that.

586
00:28:31,080 --> 00:28:33,080
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's the thing that the plants only net the

587
00:28:33,080 --> 00:28:36,200
Speaker 2: poachers about twenty five cents each on the black market,

588
00:28:36,560 --> 00:28:38,560
Speaker 2: So that means they actually have to make off with

589
00:28:38,600 --> 00:28:40,760
Speaker 2: a huge bunch of plants in order for it to

590
00:28:40,800 --> 00:28:45,120
Speaker 2: be lucrative, and of course that only makes the problem worse, right, Like, yeah,

591
00:28:45,440 --> 00:28:47,800
Speaker 2: I was reading this story in Smithsonian about this international

592
00:28:47,880 --> 00:28:50,600
Speaker 2: group of fly trap poachers who once tried to smuggle

593
00:28:50,760 --> 00:28:55,760
Speaker 2: nine thousand poached fly traps on a flight to Netherlands. Yeah,

594
00:28:55,960 --> 00:28:59,120
Speaker 2: it's more than a quarter of the species naturally growing population.

595
00:28:59,680 --> 00:29:01,840
Speaker 1: Wow, awesome. I'm assuming they were caught.

596
00:29:02,480 --> 00:29:05,640
Speaker 2: Yeah, thankfully they were intercepted at customs. This is a

597
00:29:05,640 --> 00:29:07,840
Speaker 2: little random, but the Dutch guy who tried to smuggle

598
00:29:07,920 --> 00:29:11,480
Speaker 2: plants claimed that he was uh, he was actually exporting

599
00:29:11,600 --> 00:29:14,440
Speaker 2: Christmas ferns, which is such a strange thing.

600
00:29:14,880 --> 00:29:17,400
Speaker 1: That's a pretty bold move. But I mean, obviously there

601
00:29:17,400 --> 00:29:19,720
Speaker 1: are laws against what these guys were doing.

602
00:29:19,560 --> 00:29:21,640
Speaker 2: Right, yeah, definitely. In fact, the problem got to be

603
00:29:21,680 --> 00:29:24,400
Speaker 2: so bad then in late twenty fourteen in North Carolina

604
00:29:24,520 --> 00:29:29,160
Speaker 2: passed more laws to about stealing fly trafts. But you know,

605
00:29:29,760 --> 00:29:32,000
Speaker 2: now poachers can actually face anywhere from one to three

606
00:29:32,080 --> 00:29:33,840
Speaker 2: years in prison for digging up the plants.

607
00:29:34,320 --> 00:29:36,560
Speaker 1: Well, hopefully that does the trick and kind of convinces

608
00:29:36,600 --> 00:29:39,320
Speaker 1: these folks to leave them where they are. But you know,

609
00:29:39,360 --> 00:29:41,920
Speaker 1: as bizarre and unsettling as carnivorous plants can be, they

610
00:29:42,280 --> 00:29:45,800
Speaker 1: undoubtedly make the world a stranger and more colorful place

611
00:29:45,880 --> 00:29:47,960
Speaker 1: to live. So I hope they stick around.

612
00:29:47,960 --> 00:29:51,080
Speaker 2: Obviously amen to that, but you know, because it couldn't

613
00:29:51,120 --> 00:29:52,640
Speaker 2: hurt to stay on their good side. But what do

614
00:29:52,640 --> 00:29:54,080
Speaker 2: you say? We headed to the fact off and share

615
00:29:54,280 --> 00:29:56,479
Speaker 2: some of the more fun facts about carnivorous plants.

616
00:29:56,520 --> 00:29:57,760
Speaker 1: All Right, that sounds like a plan.

617
00:30:07,200 --> 00:30:09,480
Speaker 2: While Facebook has developed a reputation as a place to

618
00:30:09,520 --> 00:30:13,640
Speaker 2: stock exes and manipulate elections, you shouldn't really get down

619
00:30:13,680 --> 00:30:15,880
Speaker 2: on the social media site just yet, because one of

620
00:30:15,960 --> 00:30:18,800
Speaker 2: the cooler things Facebook has helped us do is identify

621
00:30:18,960 --> 00:30:24,800
Speaker 2: new species. There's this amateur researcher named Reginaldo vascan Salos,

622
00:30:25,160 --> 00:30:28,040
Speaker 2: and he uploaded a picture of a plant he saw

623
00:30:28,200 --> 00:30:31,000
Speaker 2: on a hike on this mountain top in Brazil, and

624
00:30:31,040 --> 00:30:32,880
Speaker 2: it turned out to be a new species called the

625
00:30:32,960 --> 00:30:36,800
Speaker 2: magnificent sundube. Apparently, the plant, which grows five feet tall

626
00:30:36,840 --> 00:30:41,200
Speaker 2: and can eat dragonflies, is severely endangered. But it's on

627
00:30:41,240 --> 00:30:43,160
Speaker 2: this mountain that a lot of people access, so it's

628
00:30:43,280 --> 00:30:45,080
Speaker 2: kind of surprising that it took us this long to

629
00:30:45,120 --> 00:30:45,520
Speaker 2: find it.

630
00:30:46,040 --> 00:30:48,480
Speaker 1: Okay, So we talked about this earlier, that carnivorous plants

631
00:30:48,560 --> 00:30:51,720
Speaker 1: use all sorts of techniques to attract their prey, you know,

632
00:30:51,760 --> 00:30:55,480
Speaker 1: from bright color to the various fragrances they admit. Scientists

633
00:30:55,480 --> 00:30:58,240
Speaker 1: in India just discovered that they have another trick up

634
00:30:58,240 --> 00:31:01,280
Speaker 1: their slaves. Some picture place in the region glow with

635
00:31:01,320 --> 00:31:04,760
Speaker 1: this ultraviolet ring around their room, and so while humans

636
00:31:04,800 --> 00:31:07,800
Speaker 1: can't see the ring, ants and other insects are actually

637
00:31:07,920 --> 00:31:09,080
Speaker 1: very much attracted to it.

638
00:31:09,240 --> 00:31:11,480
Speaker 2: That's really fascinating. But how do you test out something

639
00:31:11,520 --> 00:31:11,840
Speaker 2: like that.

640
00:31:12,080 --> 00:31:14,600
Speaker 1: Well, the scientists actually painted some of the plants in

641
00:31:14,600 --> 00:31:17,280
Speaker 1: the wild with some sort of chemical that turned the

642
00:31:17,400 --> 00:31:20,400
Speaker 1: UV ring off, and when they did that, those plants

643
00:31:20,400 --> 00:31:22,880
Speaker 1: weren't able to catch nearly as much food as the others.

644
00:31:22,920 --> 00:31:25,960
Speaker 2: That's really fascinating. So Alice Obscura has a little piece

645
00:31:26,000 --> 00:31:29,400
Speaker 2: on celebrities with animals named for them, and of course

646
00:31:29,400 --> 00:31:31,080
Speaker 2: there are plenty of these right Like we've talked about

647
00:31:31,160 --> 00:31:33,760
Speaker 2: Hugh Hefner has a rabbit named for him. I think

648
00:31:33,800 --> 00:31:36,760
Speaker 2: Michael Jackson has a hermit crab. We've recently talked about

649
00:31:36,800 --> 00:31:40,400
Speaker 2: a shark name for Peter Benchley. But you know, according

650
00:31:40,440 --> 00:31:43,400
Speaker 2: to the article, only about fifty people have two animals

651
00:31:43,480 --> 00:31:46,720
Speaker 2: named for them, and only nine people have more than

652
00:31:46,800 --> 00:31:49,440
Speaker 2: five species named for them. And those heroes tend to

653
00:31:49,440 --> 00:31:53,720
Speaker 2: be people like Franklin Roosevelt, Barack Obama, and Nelson Mandela.

654
00:31:53,840 --> 00:31:57,360
Speaker 2: But you know, one person with at least eighteen critters

655
00:31:57,360 --> 00:32:01,320
Speaker 2: and plants named for him is David Attenborough, Oh, the

656
00:32:01,440 --> 00:32:05,840
Speaker 2: naturalist has a wildflower, a flightless weevil, and echidna and

657
00:32:06,080 --> 00:32:10,000
Speaker 2: at addenborosaurus. But these are all named for The most

658
00:32:10,040 --> 00:32:12,760
Speaker 2: interesting to me is the Attinborough pitcher plant, which is

659
00:32:13,360 --> 00:32:15,760
Speaker 2: only found on one mountain in the Philippines. And this

660
00:32:15,840 --> 00:32:18,320
Speaker 2: is actually the one that's big enough to digest rats

661
00:32:18,360 --> 00:32:18,960
Speaker 2: and truth.

662
00:32:19,280 --> 00:32:21,480
Speaker 1: Oh wow, I'd actually love to see one of those things.

663
00:32:21,480 --> 00:32:24,240
Speaker 1: That's pretty wild. All right, Well, here's something that's interesting.

664
00:32:24,360 --> 00:32:28,040
Speaker 1: In Wilmington, North Carolina. There's a massive carnivorous plant garden.

665
00:32:28,600 --> 00:32:31,880
Speaker 1: The city apparently created the space after a beloved horticulturist

666
00:32:31,960 --> 00:32:35,160
Speaker 1: named Stanley Reeder who had passed away. Now he was

667
00:32:35,240 --> 00:32:38,760
Speaker 1: known around the town as the fly Trap. And it's

668
00:32:38,760 --> 00:32:41,640
Speaker 1: cool because there's a full three fourths acre dedicated to

669
00:32:41,720 --> 00:32:46,040
Speaker 1: cultivating pitcher plants, sundews, venus fly traps, and all these

670
00:32:46,080 --> 00:32:49,120
Speaker 1: other meat eating species, and so visitors can come for

671
00:32:49,200 --> 00:32:52,200
Speaker 1: free and take tours while they're there, and with the

672
00:32:52,200 --> 00:32:54,760
Speaker 1: one note being that they're asked to wear clothesed toed

673
00:32:54,800 --> 00:32:57,720
Speaker 1: shoes because you know, of course the plants do have feet.

674
00:32:58,400 --> 00:33:00,360
Speaker 1: But what's crazy is that this is a s with

675
00:33:00,560 --> 00:33:03,800
Speaker 1: a lot of thefts actually, in fact, in twenty thirteen,

676
00:33:04,280 --> 00:33:08,120
Speaker 1: one thousand venus fly traps valued at twenty thousand dollars

677
00:33:08,160 --> 00:33:11,920
Speaker 1: were stolen from this location alone, And while the criminals

678
00:33:11,920 --> 00:33:14,720
Speaker 1: behind this plant heist were never caught, that's actually the

679
00:33:14,800 --> 00:33:18,800
Speaker 1: crime that triggered, making stealing anyone's venus fly trap a felony.

680
00:33:19,240 --> 00:33:21,480
Speaker 2: Oh that's interesting, and I do kind of love the

681
00:33:21,560 --> 00:33:24,560
Speaker 2: idea of a venus fly trip heist, like I would

682
00:33:24,560 --> 00:33:28,160
Speaker 2: love for the next Ocean's eleven to be based on that.

683
00:33:28,840 --> 00:33:32,560
Speaker 2: You know, I had a fact about furniture that's been

684
00:33:32,600 --> 00:33:35,719
Speaker 2: made to eat insects and even small rodents, and it's

685
00:33:35,760 --> 00:33:38,320
Speaker 2: all based on flat traps. But I actually think we

686
00:33:38,320 --> 00:33:41,040
Speaker 2: should end with a flag trap. Man, I think he

687
00:33:41,120 --> 00:33:42,040
Speaker 2: deserves the credit.

688
00:33:42,200 --> 00:33:45,400
Speaker 1: So sorry, I got a little distracted because it actually

689
00:33:45,440 --> 00:33:48,680
Speaker 1: looks like Tristan finally got the slim gym to go down.

690
00:33:48,880 --> 00:33:53,040
Speaker 1: That's oh wait, looks like he's eating at Tristan eight.

691
00:33:53,720 --> 00:33:56,080
Speaker 1: That's amazing. That's that's really impressible, And I sorry, I

692
00:33:56,080 --> 00:33:58,400
Speaker 1: got a little distracted. This was a fun episode to

693
00:33:58,440 --> 00:34:01,120
Speaker 1: work on. But from Tristan and Gabe, Mango and me,

694
00:34:01,280 --> 00:34:18,120
Speaker 1: thanks so much for listening. Thanks again for listening. Part time.

695
00:34:18,160 --> 00:34:20,360
Speaker 1: Genius is a production of how stuff works, and wouldn't

696
00:34:20,400 --> 00:34:23,160
Speaker 1: be possible without several brilliant people who do the important

697
00:34:23,160 --> 00:34:25,120
Speaker 1: things we couldn't even begin to understand.

698
00:34:25,360 --> 00:34:27,000
Speaker 2: Christan McNeil does the editing thing.

699
00:34:27,200 --> 00:34:29,200
Speaker 1: Noel Brown made the theme song and does the mixy

700
00:34:29,239 --> 00:34:30,040
Speaker 1: mixy sound thing.

701
00:34:30,560 --> 00:34:32,680
Speaker 2: Jerry Roland does the exact producer thing.

702
00:34:32,880 --> 00:34:35,279
Speaker 1: Gabe Bluesier is our lead researcher, with support from the

703
00:34:35,320 --> 00:34:38,600
Speaker 1: research Army including Austin Thompson, Nolan Brown and Lucas.

704
00:34:38,320 --> 00:34:40,640
Speaker 2: Adams and Eves. Jeff Cook gets the show to your ears.

705
00:34:40,719 --> 00:34:41,520
Speaker 2: Good job, Eves.

706
00:34:41,680 --> 00:34:43,600
Speaker 1: If you like what you heard, we hope you'll subscribe,

707
00:34:43,600 --> 00:34:45,440
Speaker 1: and if you really really like what you've heard, maybe

708
00:34:45,480 --> 00:34:46,960
Speaker 1: you could leave a good review for us.

709
00:34:47,520 --> 00:34:48,480
Speaker 2: Do we forget Jason?

710
00:34:48,680 --> 00:35:00,239
Speaker 1: Jason who