Scientists Identify New Carnivorous Plant that Traps Prey Underground

This photo taken on Oct.28 shows pulling weeds from a bed of plants at a park in Baguio City, north of Manila. (AFP)
This photo taken on Oct.28 shows pulling weeds from a bed of plants at a park in Baguio City, north of Manila. (AFP)
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Scientists Identify New Carnivorous Plant that Traps Prey Underground

This photo taken on Oct.28 shows pulling weeds from a bed of plants at a park in Baguio City, north of Manila. (AFP)
This photo taken on Oct.28 shows pulling weeds from a bed of plants at a park in Baguio City, north of Manila. (AFP)

During a several-day trip with Indonesian colleagues to the Indonesian province of North Kalimantan, on the island of Borneo, botanist Martin Dančák of Czech’s Palacký University noted plants which were undoubtedly Nepenthes but produced no pitchers.

After a careful search, they found a couple of aerial pitchers, which led them to discover a strategy so far unknown from any other species of carnivorous plant: catching the prey in the soil.

The Nepenthes plant is widely spotted in southern China, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Australia, India, and Siri Lanka.

It has modified leaves known as pitfall traps or pitchers, whose inner walls are covered with a waxy substance and hairs or folds that lock the prey insects in. The pitchers also contain glands that secrete a liquid that fills a part of it.

One of its sides produces a nectar that attracts insects and traps them after they fall in. The prey is then consumed using digestive enzymes, and the plant uses the resulting nutrients to grow.

While most of these plants’ pitchers are found above the ground, Dančák and his colleagues discovered that this species places its up-to-11-cm-long pitchers underground, where they are formed in cavities or directly in the soil and trap animals living underground, usually ants, mites and beetles.

The findings were announced in the journal PhytoKeys on June 29.

The newly discovered species grows on relatively dry ridge tops at an elevation of 1,100-1,300 m. According to its discoverers, this might be why it evolved to move its traps underground.

"We hypothesize that underground cavities have more stable environmental conditions, including humidity, and there is presumably also more potential prey during dry periods," adds Michal Golos of the University of Bristol, United Kingdom, who also worked on this curious plant.



New Observations Show Asteroid Resembling a Spinning Hockey Puck

This composite image of asteroid 2024 YR4 was captured with the Gemini South telescope in Chile. (International Gemini Observatory/NOIRLab/NSF/AURA/M. Zamani via AP)
This composite image of asteroid 2024 YR4 was captured with the Gemini South telescope in Chile. (International Gemini Observatory/NOIRLab/NSF/AURA/M. Zamani via AP)
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New Observations Show Asteroid Resembling a Spinning Hockey Puck

This composite image of asteroid 2024 YR4 was captured with the Gemini South telescope in Chile. (International Gemini Observatory/NOIRLab/NSF/AURA/M. Zamani via AP)
This composite image of asteroid 2024 YR4 was captured with the Gemini South telescope in Chile. (International Gemini Observatory/NOIRLab/NSF/AURA/M. Zamani via AP)

The asteroid that once had a small chance of striking Earth and now might slam into the moon resembles a spinning hockey puck, scientists said Tuesday.
A team of astronomers used the Gemini South Observatory in Chile to observe asteroid 2024 YR4 in multiple wavelengths as it zoomed away from Earth in February, barely 1 1/2 months after its discovery. They created a 3D image of it based on their findings, The Associated Press reported.
The nearly 200 foot (60-meter) asteroid looks more like a flat disk — or not-quite-round hockey puck — than a potato. It also has a rapid rotation rate of about once every 20 minutes.
“This find was rather unexpected since most asteroids are thought to be shaped like potatoes or toy tops rather than flat disks,” the research team lead, Bryce Bolin from Eureka Scientific said in a statement.
Scientists said it most likely originated in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, and is rich in silicates.
At one point earlier this year, NASA and the European Space Agency put the odds of the asteroid striking Earth in 2032 at 3%. It's now down to virtually zero for the next century, but there's a 3.8% chance it could strike the moon instead. Even if that happens, NASA assures the moon's orbit will not be altered.
The asteroid —- which swings our way every four years — will be too far away by next week for ground telescopes to see. The Webb Space Telescope will take another look later this month or next.
Scientists consider all this good practice for when a potentially killer asteroid heads our way.