Monday 17 August 2009

We Name You Nepenthes attenboroughii,

in case you are wondering it is a new spices of pitcher plant, Nepenthes attenboroughii has two claims to fame, first it is so large it is said to eat rats, and secondly it has been named after Sir David Attenborough, the strange thing about pitcher plants is that they live in nitrogen deficient soil, so to make up for the short fail they have developed the strategy to trap insects and dissolve them in a enzyme to enrich their diet and make up for the lack of nitrogen, getting past this long tirade this is a new species that has been discovered in the Philippines which I mention as Diana is a Filipino, it is reputed to be so big it eats rats that have fallen into it's deadly clutches, having said discovered it was in fact found over 3 years ago on the island of Palawan, but has only just a few days ago been described, it was found on the mountainside of just one mountain, making it extremely rare, if you want to see some more pictures of pitchers have a look here, going back to David Attenborough the first recollection I have of watching television was of him making a black and white film back in 1956 called Zoo Quest For A Dragon, I was spell bound, also as an aside the first Christmas present I remember receiving was the book of the same title, I can still remember it's cover now, the team was looking for Komodo dragons, from the island of that name, they are the worlds largest growing living lizard with an extremely poisonous bite, as an aside when I had my house in the jungle I collected a small number of insect eating plants, if like me you are fascinated by them you can buy some here in the UK or here in the States, also this company in the States sells my second other favorite plant, or I should say grass group, the bamboos, but back to the original discovery, it was made by botanists Stewart McPherson and Alastair Robinson having tracked the plant down to the slopes of Mount Victoria, also as another aside Sir David already has a giant marine dinosaur, wasp and rare tree named after him.

1 comment:

Blue-eyed Stranger said...

wow this is amazing... Wondering if their avalible in south africa
www.blue-eyedenigma.blogspot.com