Giant meat-eating plant discovered: Ideal rat catcher

pa.press.net

A giant carnivorous plant has been discovered by a team of scientists in the central Philippines, and named after Sir David Attenborough.

The new species of pitcher plant is so big it can catch rats as well as insects in its traps.

It occurs only on the summit of one mountain in Palawan, Philippines and was discovered by botanists Alastair Robinson, Stewart McPherson, Volker Heinrich and Andreas Fleischmann in June 2007.

They named the remarkable plant Nepenthes attenboroughii in honour of natural history expert Sir David Attenborough. It is a real-life version of Audrey, the man-eating plant created by nerdy florist Seymour Krelborn in the 1986 film Little Shop of Horrors.

Nepenthes attenboroughii produces some of the largest, most voluminous and most beautiful traps of all known pitcher plants.

Mr McPherson, 26, from Poole in Dorset, said: "It's definitely not a joke. There's 120 different species all around the world.