Second ever bird eating plant recorded in UK

Killer plant 'eats' blue tit at Somerset nursery

Chelsea Flower, show gold medal winning gardener, Nigel Hewitt-Cooper, from West Pennard, Somerset, England was,"staggered," to find that one of his plants had caught and was digesting a bird (blue tit.) Cool plant.

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/1cfb7a3a90db.jpg[/atsimg]

It is believed to be only the second time such a carnivorous plant has been documented eating a bird anywhere in the world.

"I've got a friend who's studied these particular plants extensively in the wild and he's never found evidence of any of them having caught birds," said Mr Hewitt-Cooper. "The other documented time was in Germany a few years ago and that was in cultivation, not in the wild.

"The larger ones frequently take frogs, lizards and mice, and the biggest ones have been found with rats in them, but to find a bird in one is pretty unusual."

Source: www.bbc.co.uk...

reply to post by Pimander


Wowsers... interesting... So does the plant digest everything, bones and all, or does it somehow eat what it can an disregard the rest?

also,

I for one would like to welcome our new plant overlords.....

The bird was likely trying to fish out an insect and somehow fell in; the liquid in a pitcher plant contains digestive enzymes because they typically grow where there is no surface nutrients on the soil level. Ultimately the bird will become digested but because of the size difference I highly doubt it will happen. Most likely that particular pitcher will rot away as the juices of the bird break down and flies and maggots take over! The pitcher will not be able to digest the entire bird!

There is the off chance that someone placed a dead bird into the pitcher to see what would happen!

This is bunk! Pure and utter hogwash; if you stick your finger in there and it gets digested do you say that now they have a "human-eating" plant? No, that would be absurd!

Seriously, this is the worst case of "dumb-foundedness" I ever read!

what a great choice in meal...... a Blue Tit !
Smurfette would be a delicasy

I used to grow Nepenthes as a hobby. Keeping carnivorous plants, especially Nepenthes (tropical pitcher plant vines) is a big hobby, like orchid keeping. I stopped when I went to college. A dorm is far too small to grow these plants to adulthood in, because they are essentially vines that climb up into the trees in the wild.

I hate to be a debbie downer but this is a freak occurrence and not normal prey. The pitcher will likely rot from the decaying bird. It is just too large of a meal.

Wow, and I thought the Venus Flytrap we got a few weeks ago was awesome... now I want one of those! Even if that is a one in a million chance photo, that is still so cool. Poor bird, though...

lol i thought the title said there was another bird found to eat plants.

yea, that bird wins the darwin award.

Vegatarians are confused.



Good find