Nepenthes creates an unusually slippery trap using common developmental processes

Nepenthes creates an unusually slippery trap using common developmental processes

Nepenthes pitcher plants are unusual in many ways. They are carnivorous. They use a radically transformed leaf blade as a pitcher to trap insects. They also have evolved a biomechanical ridge system on the pitcher’s rim that is unusually wettable and slippery. The cells forming this rim point inward, towards the pitcher interior, forcing the insect to slip inside where it is trapped and consumed. A recent study published in Annals of Botany by L…