SCIENCE LAB SCARES : CHARLES DARWIN

' APPETITE For Flies.' Charles Darwin was right : These plants survive as carnivores.

Charles Darwin loved a deep dive. He devoted years to studying barnacles and obsessed over breeding pigeons.

But one of his most enduring fascinations was carnivorous plants. He called the Venus flytrap '' one of the most wonderful plants in the world '' and once remarked that he cared about sundews, plants that sport sticky, flypaper-like traps, '' than the origin of all the species in the world.''

In 1875, Darwin published a treatise on carnivorous plants that featured several species he thought could be flesh-eating flora.

Among them were hardy alpine plants in the genus Saxifraga that had sticky hairs reminiscent of his beloved sundews.

Darwin tempted two European Saxifraga species with insects during feeding experiments, but he was ultimately unable to prove that the species were carnivorous.

More than 150 years later, scientists have vindicated Darwin's hypothesis.

A team of researchers recently served tiny flies to another Saxifraga species native to China. Their findings showed that the plant does digest and absorb sustenance from trapped prey.

According to Hang Sun, a researcher in China and one of the authors of the paper, the findings reveal that carnivory has deep roots.

'' This implies carnivorous plants could be more widespread than we currently know and that more species are hiding the ability to digest prey,'' he said.

!WOW! thanks Jack Tamisiea.