研究人员在加拿大发现了肉食植物

Researchers say they have discovered a plant in Canada that not only eats insects, but also feeds on at least one amphibious creature.

The discovery was recently reported in a study by a research team from Canada's University of Guelph in Ontario. The study was published in the journal Ecology.

The research involved pitcher plants in Ontario's Algonquin Provincial Park. The plants – which take many shapes and sizes and have colorful designs - grow in wetlands across Canada.

A pitcher plant's leaves usually form a tall, narrow pocket that can hold liquid. Insects and spiders that enter the pocket often become trapped and the pitcher plant then feeds on their bodies.

Pitcher plants are often found in bogs - soft, extremely wet areas. The plants are known for feeding on small organisms – such as insects and spiders – that get caught in the trap.

But the researchers made a surprising discovery - the pitcher plants were also feeding on young salamanders. A salamander is a lizard-like amphibian.

The research team said it believes this is the first time any North American pitcher plants have been observed feeding on anything besides insects or spiders. In the summer of 2017, then University of Guelph student Teskey Baldwin

found a salamander trapped inside a pitcher plant while doing field work in the provincial park. One of the biggest surprises was that the discovery did not happen earlier, the researchers said.

Alex Smith is a biology professor at the University of Guelph and co-writer of the study. He told Canada's CTV News the research station near the bog where the pitcher plants were observed has been there for 70 years.

So the surprise was that we discovered such a new case of plants eating vertebrates involving such a well-known species in such a well-known space, Smith said. During visits to a single area of the park in fall of 2018,