News in Brief Plants

Tricky pitcher plants lure ants into a false sense of security

Scout ants escape, but lead nest mates back to massacre

pitcher plant trap

JUST WAIT  Traps that catch insects for some carnivorous pitcher plants exploit the social habits of ants.

Andrea Schieber/Flickr (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

By Susan Milius

- More than 2 years ago

In a counterintuitive twist, pitcher plant traps that work only some of the time did the best job of catching huge hauls of ants for the plants to eat.