[HN Gopher] After millions of years, why are carnivorous plants ...
___________________________________________________________________
After millions of years, why are carnivorous plants still so small?
Author : gmays
Score : 30 points
Date : 2025-06-13 20:04 UTC (4 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.smithsonianmag.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.smithsonianmag.com)
| leoedin wrote:
| Larger animals tend to more intelligent - presumably there's a
| natural limit to the size of prey a carnivorous plant can
| reliably catch from a static location.
| IAmBroom wrote:
| Counterpoint: mice and at least one monkey baby have died in
| pitcher plants in the wild.
| jonplackett wrote:
| Isn't this still just the original point though, mice ain't
| that big!
| almosthere wrote:
| We haven't had an unscheduled total eclipse of the sun with
| people singing in the background yet.
| colecut wrote:
| have they tried feeding them alllll niiight loooong
| IAmBroom wrote:
| OK, I wrote my theory, and then read the article: same.
|
| But I will add that a commercial grower of venus flytraps once
| got curious, and took a few thousand cloned plantings, growing
| them in a variety of conditions. _As soon as the soil became
| nourishing_ , the plants would die. Post mortem seemed to
| indicate their roots were fungally attacked.
|
| So: plant adapts to living in a food desert (not an actual one,
| of course; it has to be wet for the carnivory to work, as the
| article points out). Plant gains weirdo digestion abilities, but
| at the same time, it no longer needs expensive anti-fungal
| defences - because the ground isn't rich enough to support
| parasitic fungi.
|
| Then: human adds the nutrients back in. Boom! The ordinary fungus
| in the air, which has a tough time invading grass or tree or
| tobacco or pepper roots (because they have extensive defences,
| like capsaicin), lands in the rich soil of pretty-much helpless
| flytrap roots, and has a buffet.
| NegativeLatency wrote:
| Sorta similar with a lot of plants I imagine, we planted a
| Madrone tree and it's very tempting to want to water a small &
| new tree but they can also get root issues if the ground is too
| wet or doesn't drain well enough. They're highly adapted to
| living on the sides of cliffs.
| ge96 wrote:
| I've been trying to grow a mango from a seed for so long. The
| roots always get hit by black fungus and it dies off. Tallest
| I got one to grow was about 10"
| nyeah wrote:
| tl;dr Basically a lot of sorry excuses.
|
| If you're a plant, don't buy into the negativity. Work your way
| up the food chain. If you eat it, then it's your food.
| bell-cot wrote:
| As soon as a carnivorous plant gets big enough to be eating young
| mammals, it hits the Mama Bear barrier. With motivation, even a
| tiny mammal can do an enormous amount of damage to a plant.
| hirvi74 wrote:
| Some carnivorous plants do eat mammals. Though not primarily,
| some pitcher plant species have been known to eat mice, for
| example.
| _tom_ wrote:
| You are assuming that they haven't.
|
| Brambles can trap sheep, benefiting from the sheep as fertilizer:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mrGobnZq83g
|
| Falling coconuts can not only kill people, but probably kill far
| more small animals, again benefiting from them as fertilizer,
| ethbr1 wrote:
| Came to HN for tech news, left with a disturbing realization
| that coconut trees might be low-key carnivorous.
| Sevii wrote:
| Plants not being able to chew or tear their prey is a big
| disadvantage.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2025-06-17 23:00 UTC)