Speaker 1: Guess what, mango?
Speaker 2: What's that? Well?
Speaker 1: So, did you ever have a venus fly trap as
Speaker 1: a kid?
Speaker 2: I did not. I mean my cousins Froshni and Rohan,
Speaker 2: who are so cool, they had one.
Speaker 1: But yeah, all the cool kids had one. It's true,
Speaker 1: you know. I think one of the things I remember
Speaker 1: most about it was how impossible it was to convince
Speaker 1: my friends not to keep making it close up like
Speaker 1: this one that I had. And it was just something
Speaker 1: too satisfying about like taking a pencil or something like
Speaker 1: that and triggering it to close up.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I feel like every kid who's been around one
Speaker 2: is guilty of like trying to feed it something they shouldn't.
Speaker 1: Well, And I was recently reminded of a little display
Speaker 1: of these carnivorous plants that one of our teachers had
Speaker 1: put out in front of her classroom. This was back
Speaker 1: in third grade, and you know, there was some venus
Speaker 1: fly traps and pitcher plants, of course a few others,
Speaker 1: and it was weird how problematic this display became because
Speaker 1: you had this one group of kids that just couldn't resist,
Speaker 1: and so every day, at or any time they were outside,
Speaker 1: they would try to find anythings to feed the plant
Speaker 1: like insects, whatever they could find, and things got a
Speaker 1: little out of hand when one day the teacher found
Speaker 1: a matchbox car inside one of the picture plants.
Speaker 2: I had no idea. I didn't think mashbox cars tasted
Speaker 2: like meat.
Speaker 1: Well me either, but apparently they did. But it really
Speaker 1: did show just how impossible it is for a group
Speaker 1: of kids to resist feeding these plants that they saw
Speaker 1: as just being so exotic. And you know, keep in mind,
Speaker 1: this was I think a year or two after the
Speaker 1: remake of Little Shop of Horrors had come out, so
Speaker 1: you know, this idea of a ferocious flesh eating plant
Speaker 1: was it was kind of already in kids' minds, and
Speaker 1: it actually led to the bigger problem, which was that
Speaker 1: some of the older kids in the school were telling
Speaker 1: some of the kindergarteners that these plants were going to
Speaker 1: eat them. Of course, and it only took a couple
Speaker 1: of kindergarteners who simply refused to walk past the display
Speaker 1: to put it to an end, and the display disappeared
Speaker 1: as quickly as it went up. Or else, I guess
Speaker 1: it just got moved to the science plat, but either way,
Speaker 1: it was no longer in the hallway for kids.
Speaker 2: To say, poor kids. But you know, even if you're
Speaker 2: horrified by the plants, like, there is something so fascinating
Speaker 2: about them, right yeah, And it's what made us.
Speaker 1: Want to tackle today's topic, you know, to talk about
Speaker 1: things like the plant that Darwin described as the most
Speaker 1: wonderful plant in the world, or to think about which
Speaker 1: animal actually likes to spend its nights inside a picture plant,
Speaker 1: and of course which state is the only one with
Speaker 1: an official state carnivorous plant. There's so much to bid into,
Speaker 1: so let's dive in. Hey, their podcast listeners, welcome to
Speaker 1: part time Genius. I'm Will Pearson and as always by
Speaker 1: my good friend mangesh hot Ticketter and on the other
Speaker 1: side of the soundproof glass tending to his own venus
Speaker 1: fly trap but trying to feed it. Is that a
Speaker 1: slim It is a slim gym Oh wow, that's our
Speaker 1: friends and producer Tristan McNeil.
Speaker 2: I know I already told him I don't think it's
Speaker 2: going to eat a slim tom, Tristan, but he just
Speaker 2: looked me in the eye and said, meat is meat.
Speaker 1: Kind of a weird catchphrase there, Tristan, But I mean
Speaker 1: this is something that a lot of people are actually
Speaker 1: curious about is what types of meat do Venus fly
Speaker 1: traps preferred?
Speaker 2: You know, yeah, so usually of course they go for
Speaker 2: insects and spiders, though I did read that some fly
Speaker 2: traps will occasionally catch a small frog for dinner. And
Speaker 2: there are also these carnivorous pitcher plants and the Philippines
Speaker 2: that are big enough to digest rats and shrews.
Speaker 1: Wow, so that's actually true, then, is that something that
Speaker 1: happens often?
Speaker 2: Not exactly, so, frogs and rodents are pretty big meals
Speaker 2: for carnivorous plants. Basically, it's like a I don't know,
Speaker 2: like if if human ate an entire cow or something, right,
Speaker 2: it's not something that we do very often, just because
Speaker 2: of how much time and energy it takes to digest
Speaker 2: something that huge.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't need an entire cow every day. I
Speaker 1: feel like that's just more of a sometimes food for
Speaker 1: special occasions, the full cow. But I mean, seriously, though,
Speaker 1: how amazing is it that there are plants that can
Speaker 1: actually eat animals? I mean, it's kind of terrifying, but
Speaker 1: it's also pretty incredible.
Speaker 2: Yeah, It's one of those things that always measures to
Speaker 2: amaze me. And creep me out, like every time I
Speaker 2: think about it. You know, it also just seems so
Speaker 2: unplant like. Uh, it feels like, you know, a plant
Speaker 2: that hunts and traps and kills and digests the meal.
Speaker 2: Like those aren't plant activities. I don't mean to stereotype, but.
Speaker 1: And that's why today's show was such a fun one
Speaker 1: to put together, because so much of what we found
Speaker 1: out was just completely unexpected. So today we'll be answering
Speaker 1: all sorts of bizarre questions that most of us have
Speaker 1: never thought to ask, things like why did carnivorous plants
Speaker 1: evolve a taste for meat? The venus fly traps really
Speaker 1: know how to count? And how come Thomas Jefferson was
Speaker 1: so obsessed with meat eating plants. There's a lot to
Speaker 1: cover today, but where do you think you want to start?
Speaker 2: Mango, So, one of the things we should probably get
Speaker 2: out of the way right up front is why carnivorous
Speaker 2: plants eat meat in the first place.
Speaker 1: I think it's clearly because they're evil. We talked about
Speaker 1: the timing of the movie Little Shop of Bars. If
Speaker 1: that's scientifically speaking, I think that is the answer, right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So, you know, one weird thing is I've never
Speaker 2: seen that movie as strange as it is, but uh,
Speaker 2: and I know it's beloved. But you know, for actual
Speaker 2: carnivorous plants, meat isn't really what they're after. Like, they
Speaker 2: don't capture live prey for the thrill of the hunt
Speaker 2: or whatever, or for the taste for that matter. You know,
Speaker 2: as you can guess, they're just doing it as a
Speaker 2: 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 that are out there.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's right. I mean, it is kind of an
Speaker 2: extreme measure when you think about it, but they had
Speaker 2: to develop that way because carnivorous plants tend to live
Speaker 2: in places where the soil is really thin and poor
Speaker 2: in nutrients, so they might think of like a swamp
Speaker 2: or a bog. And since the plants can't get what
Speaker 2: they need from the soil alone, they get it by
Speaker 2: digesting this live prey. Basically, the nutrients that come for
Speaker 2: the prey help the plant grow faster and increase their
Speaker 2: reproductive odds.
Speaker 1: All right, So if the meeting and trait was an
Speaker 1: evolutionary response to poor soil, then where did the carnivorous
Speaker 1: plants first come from? Because I'm just curious which part
Speaker 1: of the world had soil so bad that the plants
Speaker 1: were having to figure out, like how to eat flies
Speaker 1: and stuff like that, just to figure out how to survive.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, carnivorous plants are native to places all
Speaker 2: over the world. In fact, you can find them on
Speaker 2: every continent but Antarctica. And it's interesting because it suggests
Speaker 2: that throughout history plant species have evolved carnivorous tendencies again
Speaker 2: and again. In fact, that they've done it no less
Speaker 2: than nine times according to researchers, And any place in
Speaker 2: the world that had lousy enough soil basically became this
Speaker 2: breeding ground for carnivorous plants. And today they're actually about
Speaker 2: six hundred unique species worldwide.
Speaker 1: Oh wow, 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.
Speaker 2: That's right, because even though several different plant species hit
Speaker 2: upon the idea of eating meat, they came up with
Speaker 2: totally different, like kinds of traps for sourcing that meat.
Speaker 2: You know, we're probably most familiar with venus fly traps,
Speaker 2: which have those spring trap jaws and that they used
Speaker 2: to snare their prey. But uh, you know, other carnivorous
Speaker 2: plants have their own strategies. There's there's the sundew plant,
Speaker 2: which uses a bunch of sticky tentacles to like grab
Speaker 2: passing bugs. And there's something called the butterwort, which has
Speaker 2: this broad, flat leaf and and that kind of acts
Speaker 2: as like a fly paper, so an insect gets stuck
Speaker 2: in place, and then the leaf glands cover the bug
Speaker 2: and digestive mucus, and you know, all the nutrients are
Speaker 2: then absorbed straight into the leaf.
Speaker 1: Oh a nightmare. It's like being chained to a wall
Speaker 1: while the wall eats you. It's just not something pleasant
Speaker 1: to think about.
Speaker 2: The wall is drifting this gross goole over you're at
Speaker 2: the same day. You know. As memorable as the butterwarts
Speaker 2: trap is, my favorite carnivorous plant is the pitcher plant,
Speaker 2: and they're probably the second most known next to the
Speaker 2: flat traffs. They have these specialized leaves that use color
Speaker 2: and also scent to draw insects to their picture, like organs,
Speaker 2: and then thanks to all these downward facing hairs on
Speaker 2: the leaves, the insects aren't able to crawl back out. Instead,
Speaker 2: they just slip into this deadly enzyme bat that slowly
Speaker 2: digests them.
Speaker 1: Well, I can see why that's your favorite. I mean,
Speaker 1: who doesn't love the old dunkem in a tub of
Speaker 1: acid routine? And it's impressive.
Speaker 2: Yeah, But I mean I get that it's gruesome, but
Speaker 2: I kind of like how well designed it is, right, Like,
Speaker 2: it's super tricky. And you know, picture plants can be
Speaker 2: gross too. They don't actually have a way of expelling
Speaker 2: their waist, so as the plant gets older, it's picture
Speaker 2: just kind of fills up with all these indigestible insect
Speaker 2: parts until it kind of becomes this big bug graveyard.
Speaker 2: And while the picture plants acid bad sounds like kind
Speaker 2: of bad. The thing is like all carnivorous plants rely
Speaker 2: on some kind of chemical cocktail to digest their prey
Speaker 2: fly traps, inject it into the chambers where they trap
Speaker 2: their prey butterwarts, as we mentioned, secrete it through their leaves.
Speaker 2: And in fact, there was a study last year out
Speaker 2: of the University of Buffalo and it shows just how
Speaker 2: similar this technique is across species. Basically, it proved that
Speaker 2: different carnivorous plants, including ones that were only distantly related,
Speaker 2: all use the same molecular recipe for digestive fluids. And
Speaker 2: that's despite the fact that some of these plants are
Speaker 2: native to different continents and evolved separately over the course
Speaker 2: 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.
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly, and they found that all the plants relied
Speaker 2: on similar enzymes. But what was even more amazing was
Speaker 2: that the enzymes aren't unique to carnivorous plants. They're actually
Speaker 2: used by non carnivorous plants as a way to fight
Speaker 2: off pathogens.
Speaker 1: All right, so then when the carnivorous plants kind of
Speaker 1: adapted and repurposed the enzymes for use in digestion, But
Speaker 1: I mean, how did that work? Exactly?
Speaker 2: The example I came across is this polymer called kitan,
Speaker 2: and apparently it's what the cell walls of fungi are
Speaker 2: made from. So plants obviously don't want a bunch of
Speaker 2: fungi growing on their roots and choking the life out
Speaker 2: of them, So they produce this special enzyme to break
Speaker 2: the kitan down and keep these funguses at bay. But
Speaker 2: in the case of carnivorous plants, that enzyme has been
Speaker 2: repurposed to eat away like insect exoskeletons, and that also
Speaker 2: happens to be made of kitan. So it's a pretty
Speaker 2: wild case of plants kind of reprogramming their existing genes
Speaker 2: to suit this more meat loving lifestyle. Huh.
Speaker 1: All right, so maybe all carnivorous plants share this same
Speaker 1: gross bond, But I still think you need to convince
Speaker 1: me a little bit more about picture plants.
Speaker 2: You're really on this is.
Speaker 1: That we know that flooded graveyard you described has to
Speaker 1: make them like fifty times grosser than the other meat
Speaker 1: eaters that are out there. It's just kind of weird.
Speaker 2: Well, what if I told you that a pitcher plant
Speaker 2: is actually a cradle of life?
Speaker 1: You'd just be making up words? What do you mean
Speaker 1: by that?
Speaker 2: So one of the things I'm surprised to learn is
Speaker 2: that there are actually some species of super tiny frogs
Speaker 2: that lay their eggs in the safety of a picture plant,
Speaker 2: and then when they hatch these baby tadpoles spend their
Speaker 2: first weeks of life swimming in that murky water, right
Speaker 2: up until they're old enough to sort of hop out
Speaker 2: and strike out on their own. You know. There's also
Speaker 2: a mammal in Borneo that just likes to cozy up
Speaker 2: to pitcher plants. It's called the common wooly bat, and
Speaker 2: apparently one of its favorite places the sleep is snuggled
Speaker 2: up inside a pitcher plant.
Speaker 1: Wait, it actually sleeps inside the picture, Like, why would
Speaker 1: it want to sleep in a bunch of dead bug water?
Speaker 1: What's the incentive there?
Speaker 2: Well, that's what makes this particular species so special, So
Speaker 2: it actually grows two different kinds of pictures. The first
Speaker 2: is your standard bug catching picture. It's close to the ground,
Speaker 2: it smells sweet, and it's filled with these digestive fluids.
Speaker 2: But the second type of picture is designed especially for bats.
Speaker 2: It's higher up, it's dry inside, and its shaped almost
Speaker 2: like a little reflector dish so that the bats can
Speaker 2: easily spot it with their sonar.
Speaker 1: Huh, Well, what's so special about bats? Like why would
Speaker 1: the plants kind of roll out the red carpet just
Speaker 1: just for them?
Speaker 2: I guess it's that the plants are actually after the
Speaker 2: guana or you know, the bat waste, and every time
Speaker 2: the bats spend the night, they relieve themselves and leave
Speaker 2: nutrients for the plants to absorb. So it's kind of
Speaker 2: like a bat hotel where everyone just pays for the
Speaker 2: room with feces.
Speaker 1: Oh, a disgusting business model, but whatever works. But I mean,
Speaker 1: I think you sort of brought me around on the
Speaker 1: picture plants. They are pretty enterprising, I have to give
Speaker 1: you that they are.
Speaker 2: And you know, picture plants aren't the only ones either.
Speaker 2: You know, carnivorous plants in general have this alien kind
Speaker 2: of cleverness about them, where when you look at the
Speaker 2: level of ingenuity and precision on you know, how they
Speaker 2: display their traps, it's kind of easy to forget you're
Speaker 2: dealing with a plant and not some kind of intelligent animal.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I know what you mean, And you know, I
Speaker 1: think the venus fly trap would probably be a good
Speaker 1: example of the kind of we have, the kind of
Speaker 1: intelligence that you're talking about. So what do you say
Speaker 1: we take a closer look at what makes those tick?
Speaker 2: Yeah, and that sounds great, But first let's take a
Speaker 2: quick break.
Speaker 1: You're listening to Part Time Genius and we're talking about
Speaker 1: the cutthroat world of carnivorous plants. You know, despite their
Speaker 1: violent tendencies, meetating plants have had their fair share of
Speaker 1: admirers over the years. You know. 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 sundew things that
Speaker 1: you mentioned earlier, the plants with the sticky tentacles. Well,
Speaker 1: apparently Darwin knew a botanist who didn't think sundews were
Speaker 1: anything to ride home about. So Darwin sent a note
Speaker 1: to the guy saying, quote, you are unjust on the
Speaker 1: merits of my beloved sundw. It is a wonderful plant,
Speaker 1: or rather a most sagacious animal. I will stick up
Speaker 1: for the sund to the day of my death.
Speaker 2: I mean, it does sound like he was really smitten.
Speaker 2: And it's funny because Thomas Jefferson had a similar fascination
Speaker 2: with flat traps, though I don't think he ever got
Speaker 2: to study them up close the way Darwin did.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's true, but I mean it's not for lack
Speaker 1: of trying. I was actually looking into this a little
Speaker 1: and it turns out that Jefferson had an especially tough
Speaker 1: time tracking down his own venus fly traps. It's a
Speaker 1: little weird because you have to consider that some venus
Speaker 1: flytrap species are actually native to the Carolinas. In fact,
Speaker 1: this is a little bit random. But North Carolina is
Speaker 1: the only state to select an official state carnivorous plant,
Speaker 1: and that is, of course, the venus flytrap.
Speaker 2: What a great fact, you know, it is very smart
Speaker 2: of North Carolina to have snapped up that the first
Speaker 2: round of the carnivorous plant draft exactly. But did you know,
Speaker 2: I want to talk about Jefferson more. Did he ever
Speaker 2: get his hands on a fly trap?
Speaker 1: Well, we actually don't know for certain. I mean, what
Speaker 1: we do know is that Jefferson started a letter campaign
Speaker 1: back in seventeen eighty six, and he was requesting that
Speaker 1: multiple people send him either fly trap seeds or fully
Speaker 1: grown plants as soon as possible. I guess this was
Speaker 1: an urgent matter, and unfortunately, the plants were so hard
Speaker 1: to come by and the postal service was so unreliable
Speaker 1: back then that Jefferson didn't actually get his hands on
Speaker 1: the seeds until a full eight years later. So on
Speaker 1: January eighteen oh four, President Jefferson wrote a letter to
Speaker 1: Timothy Bloodworth saying, I thank you for the seed of
Speaker 1: the fly trap. It is the first I have ever
Speaker 1: been able to obtain, and shall take great care of it.
Speaker 2: So he finally got it. Then, Yeah, he definitely.
Speaker 1: Got some seeds in eighteen oh four, but unfortunately the
Speaker 1: trail goes cold after that until like eighteen oh nine
Speaker 1: or so, and Jefferson writes his last mention of fly
Speaker 1: trap in this manuscript that's about gardening, and it's it's
Speaker 1: kind of an ominous but a little bit confusing of
Speaker 1: an entry. So he simply wrote, sewed seeds of Diania
Speaker 1: mascupula in a pot. They were several years old.
Speaker 2: So I'm guessing nothing came of that, but it's kind
Speaker 2: of amazing that he didn't bothered, Like, after what eight
Speaker 2: years he was asking for these seeds, he finally got them,
Speaker 2: and then he didn't bother them to plant them for
Speaker 2: like another five years. Like, yeah, I'm kind of questioning
Speaker 2: his commitment to the plants.
Speaker 1: I guess, so it feels a little odd, But you
Speaker 1: might want to excuse him because he probably got a
Speaker 1: little bit busy with the whole Louisiana purchase thing, got
Speaker 1: a little distracted. But you know, one thing that Jefferson
Speaker 1: and Darwin would both have liked is a recent study
Speaker 1: that showed that the venus fly trap actually knows how
Speaker 1: to count.
Speaker 2: So what does that mean exactly? Like, what is it counting?
Speaker 1: Well, actually a few things, but I feel like we
Speaker 1: got to backup just a little bit to understand how
Speaker 1: the fly trap functions. So, for starters, each plant has
Speaker 1: multiple each of which is made of these specialized leaves
Speaker 1: covered in these tiny sensory hairs. And so the leaves
Speaker 1: of the trap, as we mentioned, secrete this sweet smelling
Speaker 1: nectar to help lure in those hungry insects. And when
Speaker 1: one of these visitors brushes against the plant's 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 then really has to be replaced.
Speaker 1: But again, since the plant uses multiple traps at once,
Speaker 1: they never have to miss a meal.
Speaker 2: I like how poetic that sounds. The husk of the
Speaker 2: insect blows away. Beautiful, But you know it also sounds
Speaker 2: like the system kind of runs like clockwork. But I'm
Speaker 2: kind of curious still, where does the counting come in?
Speaker 1: Well, clockwork actually isn't a bad analogy, because the actions
Speaker 1: of the fly trap are basically mecanic. I mean, their
Speaker 1: movements aren't directed by any kind of consciousness or anything
Speaker 1: like that. But it doesn't mean there isn't some sort
Speaker 1: of calculation that's going on. So, for instance, fly traps
Speaker 1: can actually count the number of times that their prey
Speaker 1: comes in contact with the sensory hairs that are on
Speaker 1: its leaves, and each of those touches brings about its
Speaker 1: own unique reaction. So in the very first touch, for example,
Speaker 1: the plant actually does nothing. And this makes sense if
Speaker 1: you think about it, because you know, a single touch
Speaker 1: could be a false alarm. You could have a rain
Speaker 1: drop or a falling leaf or you know, bait from
Speaker 1: a slim gym or something like that, but essentially something
Speaker 1: that wouldn't be worth the energy of closing the trap.
Speaker 1: So instead the plant waits, and it waits on that
Speaker 1: second signal, and if one arrives within the next twenty seconds,
Speaker 1: then the trapped spring shot on what is hopefully this nice,
Speaker 1: juicy cricket or something. So it really is pretty amazing
Speaker 1: how it does function like clockwork.
Speaker 2: That's fascinating. So the first touch kind of sets off
Speaker 2: this kind of internal timer in the plant, which is
Speaker 2: pretty wild.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but the plant actually doesn't even stop there. I mean,
Speaker 1: it keeps on counting. So after the trap is 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 and the
Speaker 1: trap to begin producing digestive enzymes, and so from there,
Speaker 1: each additional touch produces these proportionally you know, greater enzymes
Speaker 1: being created, you know, in order to help digest the
Speaker 1: food there, So the more an insect struggles, or the
Speaker 1: bigger and stronger it is, you know, it'll mean that
Speaker 1: the plant has to release more enzymes in order to
Speaker 1: fully digest it. And it's crazy to think about because
Speaker 1: the fact that the fly is fighting for its life
Speaker 1: is actually the very thing that brings about its death.
Speaker 1: And the harder it fights, the more the plant learns
Speaker 1: how to kill it. It's it's pretty wild.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I didn't realize Flahauts were so methought their murders.
Speaker 1: I guess it's true, but I mean, if it's any consolation, though,
Speaker 1: the captured insect isn't alive as it's being digested, and
Speaker 1: that's because the trap is actually hermetically sealed after you know,
Speaker 1: a few hours, so the insect has run out of
Speaker 1: air well before this digestive fluid is pumped in to
Speaker 1: kind of do its thing.
Speaker 2: Which I guess is a little more humane. But I
Speaker 2: am curious how the plant knows when its prey is
Speaker 2: fully digested, Like does it count out like one hundred
Speaker 2: mississippis and then just spits it out?
Speaker 1: You know, I think plants count by mississippis as well.
Speaker 1: It's pretty it's an amazing fact about nature like that.
Speaker 1: It's actually a little more nuanced than that. I mean,
Speaker 1: the inside of the trap is lined with chemical sensors
Speaker 1: that detect the kitan and a bugshell and all the
Speaker 1: nutrients and its blood. So the plant just keeps on
Speaker 1: digesting until it can't detect that stuff anymore. And once
Speaker 1: the taste of kiten 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.
Speaker 2: So I think what's the most interesting about this to
Speaker 2: me is that I feel like I'm just picking up
Speaker 2: valuable tips if I ever have to face off against
Speaker 2: like a giant venus fly trap, because and you know,
Speaker 2: maybe I'm wrong here, but it sounds like if you're
Speaker 2: ever caught in a fly trap, you should just be patient, right, Like,
Speaker 2: if you just only moved once every twenty seconds or so,
Speaker 2: you could probably get out of there without springing the trap.
Speaker 1: Well, 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 to do.
Speaker 2: Well, as long as we're on the subject official fly traps,
Speaker 2: why don't we spend some time on a few of
Speaker 2: the myths and the legends about carnivorous plants that have
Speaker 2: sprung up over the years. But first, let's take another break, all.
Speaker 1: Right, mengo, So since you brought up man eating fly
Speaker 1: traps again, I thought we should settle the age old
Speaker 1: debate and answer once and for all whether or not
Speaker 1: a venus fly trap can really digest human flesh. If
Speaker 1: any guesses on this foot, so I.
Speaker 2: Would rather not have to watch my back around a houseplant.
Speaker 2: So I want to believe that they can't. But I
Speaker 2: guess there's no reason why they couldn't. Write. I mean,
Speaker 2: they wouldn't be able to swallow a whole person or anything,
Speaker 2: but if you threw a little bit of skin in there,
Speaker 2: it feels like the plant could probably eat it.
Speaker 1: It's actually true. I mean, it turns out that the
Speaker 1: fly trap can eat a person so long as they
Speaker 1: were fed, you know, just a gram or two at
Speaker 1: a time. And this is something we know thanks to
Speaker 1: a carnivorous plant enthusiast named Barry rice. And no, Barry
Speaker 1: did not chop up a bunch of people and feed
Speaker 1: them to his plants. But just about seven years ago,
Speaker 1: Barry did contract this mean case of athletes, and that
Speaker 1: gave him the idea for an experiment. He decided to
Speaker 1: tear off some of his loop toe skin and feed
Speaker 1: it to one of his venus fly traps, just you know,
Speaker 1: just to see what would happen. So he triggered the
Speaker 1: trap to clothes and about a week later it reopened
Speaker 1: with just a tiny bit of half digested skin goo
Speaker 1: left inside, and the rest had been completely digested and
Speaker 1: the plant was totally fine.
Speaker 2: That is so gross, and just the idea that you
Speaker 2: put a little bit of toaskin in there no hot
Speaker 2: sauce or salt or condiments, that's right. I do have
Speaker 2: to admit it is kind of cool that we're still
Speaker 2: finding out new things about these plants after all these years, right,
Speaker 2: Like even if one of those things is that they
Speaker 2: could potentially eat our feet.
Speaker 1: You know. Another big question I've had is how did
Speaker 1: the venus fly trap get their name? And I mean
Speaker 1: the fly trap part makes sense, but how does the
Speaker 1: venus fit in? Like is it a reference to the
Speaker 1: goddess of love or to the planet, because to be honest,
Speaker 1: neither one really makes full sense to me.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I was curious about that too, but I couldn't
Speaker 2: find anything definitive. Some naturalists say the name comes from
Speaker 2: the white flowers and these ornate leaves that the plant produces,
Speaker 2: and supposedly they were so beautiful and feminine that people
Speaker 2: began to associate them with the goddess Venus. However, there's
Speaker 2: another theory that many historians subscribe to, and that one's
Speaker 2: a little dirtier. Apparently, a bunch of naturalists in the
Speaker 2: late seventeen hundreds they thought the plant's trap was, you know,
Speaker 2: kind of resembled a female genitalia, so they started calling
Speaker 2: it tippity twitchet, which is not a term I learned
Speaker 2: in health class. This was the seventeen hundreds and it
Speaker 2: was a different time. But you know, a few years later,
Speaker 2: someone decided to class up the allusion to femininity and
Speaker 2: they gave it the name of a goddess instead.
Speaker 1: Those naturalists are just a bunch of cards. I think
Speaker 1: I'd rather stick with the Little Shop of Horror's origin
Speaker 1: story and just say that the plants are actually aliens.
Speaker 1: From outer space and I guess the planet Venus presumably.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so you know, a hundred years ago, you wouldn't
Speaker 2: have been alone in that theory. So back then we
Speaker 2: didn't know much about the surface of Venus, and all
Speaker 2: you could see through a telescope was this thick blanket
Speaker 2: of clouds. So a ton of researchers speculated that Venus
Speaker 2: might be this steamy planet covered with lush jungle landscape,
Speaker 2: and you know, this really sparked the public's imagination. Sci
Speaker 2: fi writers began depicting the planet as this I guess,
Speaker 2: this world of carnivorous plants, and of course that theory
Speaker 2: fell to the wayside. One scientist actually could see the
Speaker 2: planet's surface and realized that it's actually a bomby nine
Speaker 2: hundred degrees or so on it. So, you know, that
Speaker 2: isn't great for supporting life.
Speaker 1: Aw.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: It seems like there was a period from about the
Speaker 1: eighteen eighties to the mid nineteen hundreds when these stories
Speaker 1: of man eating plants were really all the rage. And
Speaker 1: you know, one of the most famous instances was also
Speaker 1: the first depiction of carnivorous plants in pop culture. That
Speaker 1: was supposedly this first hand account from a German explorer
Speaker 1: and scientist, and in eighteen eighty one he claimed to
Speaker 1: have witnessed the ceremony in which this tribe in Madagascar
Speaker 1: 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.
Speaker 2: And this was published as if it was a true story,
Speaker 2: like in newspapers.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean newspapers, magazines, science journals, you name it.
Speaker 1: And other explorers confirmed this story over the years, though
Speaker 1: none of them ever provided any hard evidence of what
Speaker 1: they claimed to have seen, and the reports were just
Speaker 1: accepted as fact for decades, all the way up until
Speaker 1: you know, like the mid nineteen fifties, when this science
Speaker 1: writer named Willie Lay finally debunked this whole thing as
Speaker 1: being a hoax.
Speaker 2: So, I guess this was all made up as a
Speaker 2: way to like make money or something.
Speaker 1: Well, somebody made the story up, but it actually wasn't
Speaker 1: the story's author, And in the end, the German explorer
Speaker 1: turned out to be just as fake as the tribe
Speaker 1: and the plant itself, and so nobody really knows who
Speaker 1: was behind the hoax, but whoever it was, helped cement
Speaker 1: these carnivorous plants and the popular culture for decades after,
Speaker 1: and without this man eating tree of Madagascar to pave
Speaker 1: the way, we may never have gotten the genre classics
Speaker 1: like Little Shop of Cars or some of the others, which, obviously,
Speaker 1: as you said earlier, made such an impact on you.
Speaker 2: So you know what I find really strange is for
Speaker 2: all the stories we've concocted about the threat of carnivorous
Speaker 2: plants and how creepy most people seem to find them,
Speaker 2: the plants are really the ones that should be afraid
Speaker 2: of us, not the other way around.
Speaker 1: Oh what do you mean by that?
Speaker 2: Well, matchbox cars for starters, But right, of course. But
Speaker 2: one thing I came across this week is that many
Speaker 2: carnivorous plant species are endangered, possibly as many as half
Speaker 2: of all known species, and as you might guess, humans
Speaker 2: are the biggest threat they face, from habitat loss to
Speaker 2: pollution to even poaching. And we're just making things really
Speaker 2: difficult for me eating plants, say.
Speaker 1: Poaching, So people poach these carnivorous plants. Yeah, it's actually
Speaker 1: a huge problem.
Speaker 2: So if you take venus fly traps, for instance, you
Speaker 2: remember how Jefferson had such a hard time sourcing them
Speaker 2: even though he lived just one state north of their
Speaker 2: native habitat. I mean that's because while fly traps grow
Speaker 2: in this extremely limited area, there's a seventy five mile
Speaker 2: range in and around Wilmington, North Carolina, and even within
Speaker 2: that area, the plants are really rare.
Speaker 1: All right, So did the plants go for a lot
Speaker 1: of money or something, because I feel like you can
Speaker 1: find them pretty cheap if you just go to greenhouses,
Speaker 1: and they're even in those children science kids like that,
Speaker 1: you see. Sometimes I'm a little confused by that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's the thing that the plants only net the
Speaker 2: poachers about twenty five cents each on the black market,
Speaker 2: So that means they actually have to make off with
Speaker 2: a huge bunch of plants in order for it to
Speaker 2: be lucrative, and of course that only makes the problem worse, right, Like, yeah,
Speaker 2: I was reading this story in Smithsonian about this international
Speaker 2: group of fly trap poachers who once tried to smuggle
Speaker 2: nine thousand poached fly traps on a flight to Netherlands. Yeah,
Speaker 2: it's more than a quarter of the species naturally growing population.
Speaker 1: Wow, awesome. I'm assuming they were caught.
Speaker 2: Yeah, thankfully they were intercepted at customs. This is a
Speaker 2: little random, but the Dutch guy who tried to smuggle
Speaker 2: plants claimed that he was uh, he was actually exporting
Speaker 2: Christmas ferns, which is such a strange thing.
Speaker 1: That's a pretty bold move. But I mean, obviously there
Speaker 1: are laws against what these guys were doing.
Speaker 2: Right, yeah, definitely. In fact, the problem got to be
Speaker 2: so bad then in late twenty fourteen in North Carolina
Speaker 2: passed more laws to about stealing fly trafts. But you know,
Speaker 2: now poachers can actually face anywhere from one to three
Speaker 2: years in prison for digging up the plants.
Speaker 1: Well, hopefully that does the trick and kind of convinces
Speaker 1: these folks to leave them where they are. But you know,
Speaker 1: as bizarre and unsettling as carnivorous plants can be, they
Speaker 1: undoubtedly make the world a stranger and more colorful place
Speaker 1: to live. So I hope they stick around.
Speaker 2: Obviously amen to that, but you know, because it couldn't
Speaker 2: hurt to stay on their good side. But what do
Speaker 2: you say? We headed to the fact off and share
Speaker 2: some of the more fun facts about carnivorous plants.
Speaker 1: All Right, that sounds like a plan.
Speaker 2: While Facebook has developed a reputation as a place to
Speaker 2: stock exes and manipulate elections, you shouldn't really get down
Speaker 2: on the social media site just yet, because one of
Speaker 2: the cooler things Facebook has helped us do is identify
Speaker 2: new species. There's this amateur researcher named Reginaldo vascan Salos,
Speaker 2: and he uploaded a picture of a plant he saw
Speaker 2: on a hike on this mountain top in Brazil, and
Speaker 2: it turned out to be a new species called the
Speaker 2: magnificent sundube. Apparently, the plant, which grows five feet tall
Speaker 2: and can eat dragonflies, is severely endangered. But it's on
Speaker 2: this mountain that a lot of people access, so it's
Speaker 2: kind of surprising that it took us this long to
Speaker 2: find it.
Speaker 1: Okay, So we talked about this earlier, that carnivorous plants
Speaker 1: use all sorts of techniques to attract their prey, you know,
Speaker 1: from bright color to the various fragrances they admit. Scientists
Speaker 1: in India just discovered that they have another trick up
Speaker 1: their slaves. Some picture place in the region glow with
Speaker 1: this ultraviolet ring around their room, and so while humans
Speaker 1: can't see the ring, ants and other insects are actually
Speaker 1: very much attracted to it.
Speaker 2: That's really fascinating. But how do you test out something
Speaker 2: like that.
Speaker 1: Well, the scientists actually painted some of the plants in
Speaker 1: the wild with some sort of chemical that turned the
Speaker 1: UV ring off, and when they did that, those plants
Speaker 1: weren't able to catch nearly as much food as the others.
Speaker 2: That's really fascinating. So Alice Obscura has a little piece
Speaker 2: on celebrities with animals named for them, and of course
Speaker 2: there are plenty of these right Like we've talked about
Speaker 2: Hugh Hefner has a rabbit named for him. I think
Speaker 2: Michael Jackson has a hermit crab. We've recently talked about
Speaker 2: a shark name for Peter Benchley. But you know, according
Speaker 2: to the article, only about fifty people have two animals
Speaker 2: named for them, and only nine people have more than
Speaker 2: five species named for them. And those heroes tend to
Speaker 2: be people like Franklin Roosevelt, Barack Obama, and Nelson Mandela.
Speaker 2: But you know, one person with at least eighteen critters
Speaker 2: and plants named for him is David Attenborough, Oh, the
Speaker 2: naturalist has a wildflower, a flightless weevil, and echidna and
Speaker 2: at addenborosaurus. But these are all named for The most
Speaker 2: interesting to me is the Attinborough pitcher plant, which is
Speaker 2: only found on one mountain in the Philippines. And this
Speaker 2: is actually the one that's big enough to digest rats
Speaker 2: and truth.
Speaker 1: Oh wow, I'd actually love to see one of those things.
Speaker 1: That's pretty wild. All right, 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 Reeder 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 fourths acre dedicated to
Speaker 1: cultivating pitcher plants, sundews, venus fly traps, and all these
Speaker 1: other meat eating species, and so visitors can come for
Speaker 1: free and take tours while they're there, and with the
Speaker 1: one note being that they're asked to wear clothesed toed
Speaker 1: shoes because you know, of course the plants do have feet.
Speaker 1: But what's crazy is that this is a s with
Speaker 1: a lot of thefts actually, in fact, in twenty thirteen,
Speaker 1: one thousand venus fly traps valued at twenty thousand dollars
Speaker 1: were stolen from this location alone, And while the criminals
Speaker 1: behind this plant heist were never caught, that's actually the
Speaker 1: crime that triggered, making stealing anyone's venus fly trap a felony.
Speaker 2: Oh that's interesting, and I do kind of love the
Speaker 2: idea of a venus fly trip heist, like I would
Speaker 2: love for the next Ocean's eleven to be based on that.
Speaker 2: You know, I had a fact about furniture that's been
Speaker 2: made to eat insects and even small rodents, and it's
Speaker 2: all based on flat traps. But I actually think we
Speaker 2: should end with a flag trap. Man, I think he
Speaker 2: deserves the credit.
Speaker 1: So sorry, I got a little distracted because it actually
Speaker 1: looks like Tristan finally got the slim gym to go down.
Speaker 1: That's oh wait, looks like he's eating at Tristan eight.
Speaker 1: That's amazing. That's that's really impressible, And I sorry, I
Speaker 1: got a little distracted. This was a fun episode to
Speaker 1: work on. But from Tristan and Gabe, Mango and me,
Speaker 1: thanks so much for listening. Thanks again for listening. Part time.
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