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For a long time, scientists have questioned the existence of predatory plants. The idea that among the representatives of the flora, too there are killers, it seemed to them if not wild, then contradictory all the laws of botany. Now the sundews do not surprise anyone, venus flytraps, puffy fish and pitchers – we got used to the fact that plants are also carnivorous.
Insectivorous plants attract their victims in different ways: smell, bright color or sweetish discharge. They can divided into several groups according to the type of traps they use to catching prey.
A photo from open sources
Some predators release a sticky substance that causes insects stick to their tormentors, others, it is worth only a fly sit on them, close around her with deadly traps, someone sucks its victims, someone catches them with claws resembling crab, and someone leaves folding in a jug. With his prey carnivorous plants butcher cruelly, they secrete something resembling gastric juice and digest still alive a captive trapped in them.
But is it possible that in nature there are plants capable of catch a man in his deadly trap and his whole digest? In the second half of the twentieth century, the traveler Mariano de Silva discovered a predatory tree in the jungle of Brazil, which “preferred” to eat monkeys. The scientist claims that watched a creepy plant for several days, studying its mechanism catching prey. It attracted curious animals with a sweet, fruity the smell that makes the monkeys climb to the top of the tree for a treat. Monkeys who did not guess about anything got straight into the stomach of a monster, which grabbed them with leaves and immediately began digest. A few days later, the eyes of the traveler appeared such a picture: the plant unfolds its eerie leaves, dropping to the ground the bones of monkeys.
A photo from open sources
Agree that sounds like a horror movie. However where worse than the testimony of a German researcher of the nineteenth century Karl Lich. The scientist claimed that with his own eyes he saw the human sacrifice to a predator tree on the island of Madagascar. Local residents forced the poor victim to climb the tree, which is here she wrapped it in her creepers, and then squeezed the woman with huge leaves, digesting it in just a few days.
Scientists do not believe in the existence of predatory trees, but there were a time when they could not believe the existence of the same swamp sundew. And who knows what plants are still unknown to us hiding in the impenetrable tropical jungle of the planet …
By the way, the mysterious and little-studied table mountains of tepui Venezuela is believed to be kept in its impassable fantastic forests are many predatory plants, among which there are cannibal plants.
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