New carnivorous plant discovered

Tuesday, August 11 2009 17:36:18 by Editor

A new species of carnivorous plant has been discovered on Palawan Island in the Philippines.

The pitcher plant has been named after legendary natural history writer and presenter David Attenborough and is dubbed Nepenthes attenboroughii.

It grows on rocky soils in the summit region of Mount Victoria, Municipality of Narra and is the largest of all known pitcher plants.

The recording of the newly discovered species has been reported in the Botanical Journal of the Linnean Society.

One of the explorers who found the plant Stewart McPherson, of Red Fern Natural History Productions, told the BBC: "At around 1,600 metres above sea level we suddenly saw one great pitcher plant, then a second, then many more.

"It was immediately apparent that the plant we had found was not a known species."

Nepenthes attenboroughiis is said to feast on insects and rodents as big as rats.

It was recently revealed that a pensioner in Suffolk found a rare and potentially deadly tropical plant named Devil's Snare in her back