OuiSi Nature · Card 207
Ant Living in a Fanged Pitcher Plant
Nepenthes bicalcarata
- Location
- Andulau Forest Reserve, Brunei
- Date
- March 25, 2015
Photograph byChristian ZieglerDescription
These ants are immune to the pitcher plant’s digestive liquid—they drag a grasshopper out to eat, simultaneously helping the plant by removing the large insect that would spoil in the liquid. The ants live only on this pitcher plant, raising their young in its hollow tendrils. They can walk across the slippery rim and swim and dive in the fluid, and they also hunt the mosquito larvae that breed there and would otherwise take the plant's nutrients.
Photo linkinstagram.com/p/0pVb-5g2zH
Learn morenationalgeographic.com
The photographer
Christian Ziegler
Tropical biologist turned photojournalist for Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior and NatGeo.
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