Latest Trichome Stories
Understanding the impact of environmental change on plant traits is an important issue in evolutionary biology.
Everyone needs to eat. But it's a dog-eat-dog world, and with the exception of the top predators, everyone also gets eaten. To cope with this vicious reality, a tiny insect that eats plants has learned to employ the plant's hairs for physical protection from its beetle predator.
Researchers have observed for the first time how a Venezuelan pitcher plant uses moisture on its tiny hairs to create a ‘waterslide of death’, sending unsuspecting ants further down into the plant, where they are eventually digested.
A plant's sugary offering betrays caterpillars to predatory ants.
- A morbid dread of being buried alive. Also spelled 'taphiphobia'.