Plants found eating salamanders in Canada

Biologists were surprised to find carnivorous pitcher plants eating vertebrate prey, a discovery that may be a first for North America.

A spotted salamander succumbs to its fate in a pitcher plant at Ontario’s Algonquin Provincial Park. (Photo: Patrick D. Moldowan)

Plants are famous for producing their own food, but sometimes the cupboard is just too bare. For several hundred plant species around the world, life in nutrient-poor habitats has expanded the menu with a very different food source: animals…