Skip to content
Deacon Keith Fournier Hi readers, it seems you use Catholic Online a lot; that's great! It's a little awkward to ask, but we need your help. If you have already donated, we sincerely thank you. We're not salespeople, but we depend on donations averaging $14.76 and fewer than 1% of readers give. If you donate just $5.00, the price of your coffee, Catholic Online School could keep thriving. Thank you. Help Now >

You've heard of a Venus flytrap, but what about a HUMAN trap?

Free World Class Education
FREE Catholic Classes
New find in Russia change evolutionary path of carnivorous plants

An extinct, ancient, flesh-eating plant has been recently discovered via fossilized leaves that were preserved in Baltic amber which was found in a mine near Kaliningrad, the Russian enclave situated on the Baltic Sea between Poland and Lithuania.

Highlights

By Catholic Online (NEWS CONSORTIUM)
Catholic Online (https://www.catholic.org)
12/2/2014 (9 years ago)

Published in Green

Keywords: Green, History, Kaliningrad, Russia, Fossil

LOS ANGELES, CA (Catholic Online) - The plant is thought to be related to the Roridula "flypaper trap" plant that is found in South Africa.

Help provide kids with the quality learning tools they need.

This new plant grew in Europe about 40 million years ago, and is known from multi-cellular stalked glands and single cell hairs that were found in the amber.

The Roridula catches its prey, comprised mostly of insects, with leaves that are covered in sticky, glue-like material which is produced in the glands and tentacles of the plant.

This is similar to residue found on the Russian plant's leaves, and this shows evidence that just like the Roridula, the extinct plant would use the glue-like material to trap prey before covering them in digestive enzymes which would allow the lead to absorb nutrients from the digesting prey.

Dr. Eva-Maria Sadowski, a scientist with Gottingen University in Germany, believes that this may be the first case of a carnivorous plant being fossilized.

"Amber-fossil tree resin-preserves organisms in microscopic fidelity and frequently fossils preserved in amber are otherwise absent in the entire fossil record," she said.

"Plant remains, however, are rarely entrapped in amber, compared with the vast amount of insects and other animals."

The discovery was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, and the researchers who are responsible for the find date that fossil to between 35 and 47 million years ago, during the Eocene period.

"Our newly discovered fossils from Eocene Baltic amber are the only documented case of fossilized carnivorous plant traps and represent the first fossil evidence of the carnivorous plant family Roridulaceae, which is today a narrow endemic of South Africa," Sadowski said.

---


'Help Give every Student and Teacher FREE resources for a world-class Moral Catholic Education'


Copyright 2021 - Distributed by Catholic Online

Join the Movement
When you sign up below, you don't just join an email list - you're joining an entire movement for Free world class Catholic education.

Lent logo
Saint of the Day logo

Catholic Online Logo

Copyright 2024 Catholic Online. All materials contained on this site, whether written, audible or visual are the exclusive property of Catholic Online and are protected under U.S. and International copyright laws, © Copyright 2024 Catholic Online. Any unauthorized use, without prior written consent of Catholic Online is strictly forbidden and prohibited.

Catholic Online is a Project of Your Catholic Voice Foundation, a Not-for-Profit Corporation. Your Catholic Voice Foundation has been granted a recognition of tax exemption under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code. Federal Tax Identification Number: 81-0596847. Your gift is tax-deductible as allowed by law.