Ants Aqua-Planing on a Pitcher Plant

A Venezuelan pitcher plant uses wettable hairs to make insects slip into its deadly traps.

An insect-trapping pitcher plant in Venezuela uses its downward pointing hairs to create a 'water slide&' on which insects slip to their death, new research reveals.

Hairs on plants, called trichomes, are typically used to repel water. However, the Cambridge researchers observed that the hairs on the inside of Heliamphora nutans pitcher plants were highly wettable, prompting them to test whether this phenomenon is related to the trapping of insects.