– I’d hate to see what would happen if he got hold of her Eggo: A woman in Akron, Ohio was arrested for allegedly stabbing her boyfriend repeatedly, allegedly because he ate all of her salsa (h/t Paul).
Look, I get how important salsa can be, and I don’t want to get too high and mighty about my condiments……but see, I’m from San Antonio, and we take our salsa very seriously. I mean, like, extremely seriously. I would take the Pepsi challenge with Ohio salsa any day, and you know what’s great about Texas? There is always more salsa.
– If you’re just going to let your mouth hang open like that…: The pitcher plant, at least from a conceptual standpoint, might be the most terrifying organism to have ever existed. Yes, I’m including spiders and sharks in my analysis. Pitcher plants are at least as terrifying as winged devourers, except that they have the added factor of being real. They just sit there, waiting for something to land on them, or crawl up on them, just to slip and fall into the pitcher, where they are digested, pretty much in the open air.
Pitcher plants…grow[] long tube-shaped leaves into which insects fall. Some of the largest have pitchers up to a foot deep and can consume a whole frog or even a rat unlucky enough to fall into them. Sophisticated chemistry helps make the pitcher a death trap. Nepenthes rafflesiana, a pitcher plant that grows in jungles on Borneo, produces nectar that both lures insects and forms a slick surface on which they can’t get a grip. Insects that land on the rim of the pitcher hydroplane on the liquid and tumble in. The digestive fluid in which they fall has very different properties. Rather than being slippery, it’s gooey. If a fly tries to lift its leg up into the air to escape, the fluid holds on tenaciously, like a rubber band.
Pitcher plants are like tiny, real-life Sarlaccs, except that everyone can hear you scream.
Also, no tentacles……yet……
One species that lives on the island of Borneo, however, seems to have found another means of sustenance: as a bat toilet: Continue reading →
