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| Man-eating Plants; an evolutionary possibility? | |
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| Topic Started: Aug 10 2010, 08:06 PM (2,175 Views) | |
| MitchBeard | Aug 13 2010, 12:27 AM Post #16 |
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proud gondwanan
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No there is actually stuff like this. One of the honours projects being done at the moment at my uni that I heard about was looking at how much this plant benefits from the nutrients it gains from the insect herbivores it kills by producing a mild toxin in its leaves. |
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| Scrublord | Aug 13 2010, 08:21 AM Post #17 |
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Father Pellegrini
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What plant? |
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My Projects: The Neozoic Redux Valhalla--Take Three! The Big One Deviantart Account: http://elsqiubbonator.deviantart.com In the end, the best advice I could give you would be to do your project in a way that feels natural to you, rather than trying to imitate some geek with a laptop in Colorado. --Heteromorph | |
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| MitchBeard | Aug 13 2010, 08:56 AM Post #18 |
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proud gondwanan
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I can't remember. I was only ever told about it in passing. Must have been a little herbaceous thing though, cos they had about 300 in half a greenhouse. |
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| Holben | Aug 13 2010, 09:21 AM Post #19 |
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Rumbo a la Victoria
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How about a cage-like plant which has lots of sap and tasty-looking fruits inside? As soon as the creature walks in, tendrils grab it or something (it happens to nematodes, thanks to fungi. Also, if you jab some plants with pencils, tendrils come out.) and then the acid needles on the tendrils inject into the struggling prey. It dies standing up, and rots inside the plant. This is a work in progress. |
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Time flows like a river. Which is to say, downhill. We can tell this because everything is going downhill rapidly. It would seem prudent to be somewhere else when we reach the sea. "It is the old wound my king. It has never healed." | |
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| colddigger | Aug 13 2010, 12:44 PM Post #20 |
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Joke's over! Love, Parasky
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I know that there is a plant that is similar to the sundew, insects stick to it, die and fall off to fertilize the ground. |
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Oh Fine. Oh hi you! Why don't you go check out the finery that is SGP?? v Don't click v Spoiler: click to toggle | |
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| Scrublord | Aug 24 2010, 11:39 AM Post #21 |
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Father Pellegrini
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I've heard of that. It's called the Roridula. But I'm not sure that it could be scaled up to kill vertebrates. |
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My Projects: The Neozoic Redux Valhalla--Take Three! The Big One Deviantart Account: http://elsqiubbonator.deviantart.com In the end, the best advice I could give you would be to do your project in a way that feels natural to you, rather than trying to imitate some geek with a laptop in Colorado. --Heteromorph | |
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| Pando | Aug 24 2010, 11:41 AM Post #22 |
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Obey or I'll send you to the moon
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Wikipedia says that a bug eats the dead-insects and the plant feeds on the bugs droppings. I too doubt it can kill vertebrates. |
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| colddigger | Aug 24 2010, 12:06 PM Post #23 |
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Joke's over! Love, Parasky
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Well I suppose another bug eating it and leaving its droppings is a form of fertilizing the ground by killing bugs. |
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Oh Fine. Oh hi you! Why don't you go check out the finery that is SGP?? v Don't click v Spoiler: click to toggle | |
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| Dory | Aug 24 2010, 02:20 PM Post #24 |
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Zygote
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Yea, but with lots of plants like these around insects could easily become scarce, and then new plants would emerge that would evolve to consume larger and larger prey, and they will slowly become larger and larger and be more specialized. |
| I drank what? | |
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| sam999 | Dec 19 2010, 10:53 AM Post #25 |
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Adult
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How about something with trip-wire like snares, that cause it to simply drop a huge branch on the animal's head? |
I am not suffering from insanaty. I truely enjoy being mad.![]() ![]() ![]() Comeon, thy dragons need YOU! Visit them here please... | |
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| Iowanic | Dec 19 2010, 11:08 AM Post #26 |
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Adult
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It's been mentioned that big critters would simply avoid such plants, but what if it grew along migration 'choke-points'; where animals simply couldn't avoid running some gauntlet of hungry trees and hedges. Also; the chowing down may only be part of a plant's life-cycle: It fattens up on critters, right before winter sets in. Come spring, it 'recharges' by the returning prey-critters...inbetween it may simply behave as a typical plant. To further expound: A) come fall/early winter, it picks off north-heading critters, mostly fattening up for the coming winter. Come spring, it may be less of a case of fattening up but using the returning critters to somehow 'jump-start' it's reproduction-cycle, just as the weather starts to get warmer. Thus; it may prey only on certain creatures each time of year. Edited by Iowanic, Dec 19 2010, 11:09 AM.
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| Iowanic | Dec 19 2010, 11:13 AM Post #27 |
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Adult
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Follow up thoughts: Due to it depending on certain creatures, these plants will have to be part of a eco-system in which the prey-critters are numerous and to evolve such a realationship between predator/prey, such eco-systems will have to be long-term and dependable: one disrupted migration and the plants could be in trouble.. |
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| Nimor | Dec 19 2010, 11:14 AM Post #28 |
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Pteranodon
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Strange consensus, but it's possible of course. Man-eating plants - I wonder why they're called so? |
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| Iowanic | Dec 19 2010, 11:15 AM Post #29 |
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Adult
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Because they might eat people? |
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| Nimor | Dec 19 2010, 11:37 AM Post #30 |
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Pteranodon
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Well that's logic, isn't it? I need to check this up... |
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2:32 PM Jul 11