Plants that trap, eat their prey underground discovered

The plants, relatives of the popular snapdragon garden flowers, have an unusual network of sticky leaves underground.

These leaves allow the plants to trap and digest worms, and possibly other creatures, that stray onto their sticky surfaces in the soil, the researchers said.

While there are many species of carnivorous plants that use insects, frogs and even small mammals to supplement the nutrients they need to grow, none have ever been found to trap their prey beneath the ground.

Botanists now believe there could be many other plants that use this previously unrecognised method of killing and consuming animals, the Daily Telegraph reported.

Most common carnivorous plants use leaves above the ground to trap their prey. Pitcher plants fold their leaves into containers that hold a digestive soup which insects fall into, while the Venus Fly trap snaps its leaves shut on prey that walk onto them.

Dr Peter Fritsch, from the California Academy of Sciences who led the research, said: "The first time I saw these plants I couldn't believe what I was seeing. I have never seen anything like them before."

"The soil they grow in is very poor and sandy. Their roots basically just provide support but they have leaves that grow underground too," he noted.

The researchers who took a closer look at the plants found there were the remains of worms stuck to the upper surfaces of the leaves underground.

"There could be many more plants like this that haven't been recognised yet," Fritsch added.

The plants -- Philcoxia minensis, Philcoxia goiasensis and Philcoxia bahiensis -- are all found in the Brazilian high savannah. They are extremely rare and were first described by Kew botanist Peter Taylor.

But it wasn't until Dr Fritsch and his team examined the plants in more detail that they found tiny round leaves barely an eighth of an inch across under the surface of the soil were littered with the remains of nematode worms.(more)