Date: Tue, 17 Jun 1997 10:45:05 -0700 From: "John H. Phillips III" <phillips@library.ucsf.edu> To: cp@opus.hpl.hp.com Message-Id: <aabcdefg2366$foo@default> Subject: Re: Nepenthes bicalcarata
At 10:44 AM 6/17/97 -0700, you wrote:
>Hi.I`ve been reading the book "The Private Life of Plants" by David
>Attenborough.
>
>In the chapter on feeding he discusses the pitcher plants.One paragraph
>deals with the "twin-spurred pitcher"(N.bicalcarata?).Attenborough mentions
>that there is a small chamber in the stem which is used as a home by
>ants.He then goes on to mention that the ins regularly "dive into the
>lquid,haul dead insects on to the lip and butcher them." He then says that
>some of the pieces are taken away by the ants for their own use,but pieces
>of the insects get dropped backed into the pitcher where in their now
>smaller form are now more easily digested by the plant.
>
>Has anyone heard of\experienced this?To me it seems impossible for an ant
>to crawl out of a pitcher alive let alone haul out another insect many
>times its own weight.
There are species of ants which dine on victims of the pitchers, as well as
ants which captures mosquito larva living in the pitchers. The latter wait
at the water's edge till a larva comes up to breath, then grabs it with its
mandibles. Kind of like Eskimos hunting seals out on the arctic ice!
John Phillips
phillips@library.ucsf.edu
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