Hey! Water Me!

Life is often said metaphorically to imitate art, in which case the discovery announced following a recent expedition into remote mountainous parts of the Philippines has me expecting Steve Martin, Rick Moranis and the rest of the cast of Little Shop of Horrors to appear at any moment.

A new species of carnivorous pitcher plant has been discovered, and it's surprising that we've managed to overlook it until now. It is among the largest known to exist, and is big enough to capture (and, yes, digest) a rat in addition to the standard fare insect-based menu offerings.

The first clues into the plant's existence came several years ago from a pair of missionaries who became lost during an attempted climb of the very remote Mount Victoria, in the Philippines island province of Palawan. Following their rescue, they told of having seen the unusually large pitchers.

A recent expedition to the area by British botanists confirmed the existence of the newly known species, which the botanists have named "Nepenthes attenboroughii" in honor of natural scientist and journalist Sir David Attenborough.

Photo courtesy of Dr. Alastair Robinson, via Wikimedia Commons