August 30, 2024 • 36 mins
We recently talked about carnivorous cats and birds, but plants can be carnivorous, too! In this episode, hosts Rick and Marco find out more about insect-gobbling plants from San Diego Zoo lead horticulturalist, Adam Painter. What makes plants like the Venus fly trap so appealing to their prey? Tune in to learn more about the San Diego Zoo’s collection of these beautiful and deadly plants.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
Hi, I'm Rick Schwartz.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
When is the s World?
Speaker 3 (00:07):
I'm Marco went Welcome to Amazing Wildlife, where we explore
unique stories of wildlife from around the world and uncover
fascinating animal facts. This podcast is a production of iHeartRadio's
Ruy Studio and San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance in international
nonprofit conservation organization which oversees the San Diego Zoo and
Safari Park. All Right, Marco, our last episode was about
(00:29):
one of the larger species of carnivorous cat, the lion,
And at the end of that show, you had an
idea tohead of the zoo for this episode.
Speaker 4 (00:36):
That's throughout, amigo, and that is because I have fallen
in love with a different kind of connivor.
Speaker 1 (00:42):
My friend.
Speaker 3 (00:43):
Let me guess, it's got to be some sort of
bird of prey, right, Oh uh stork?
Speaker 1 (00:47):
No, no secretary bird.
Speaker 4 (00:50):
All super good guesses. Bet believe it or not, Dude,
it's not a bird.
Speaker 1 (00:54):
Well, I'm honestly surprised us not a bird.
Speaker 3 (00:57):
We haven't done an episode about birds since what seven,
when we learned all about the milky stores, which also
happened to be carnivores.
Speaker 2 (01:03):
Yeah, that's true, man, And you know that does remind me.
Speaker 4 (01:06):
Although the species we're talking about today does have the
word carnivorous in its name, it tends to be more
of an insectivore, with only a few eating things like
small mammals, amphibians, you know, things like that.
Speaker 1 (01:18):
Oh, I know.
Speaker 3 (01:20):
Now we're heading to the zoo to check out an
insect of some sort like oh, those giant spiders or something.
Speaker 4 (01:26):
Right, that is an awesome guest, Rick, and also good
at it for an episode.
Speaker 2 (01:30):
But that's not it. I know, you know what.
Speaker 4 (01:32):
We are going to head to the San Diego Zoo
to meet up with well, you know, maybe I'm gonna
let our guests tell us.
Speaker 2 (01:37):
So where are you going? Man, Let's go to the zoo.
Speaker 5 (01:42):
I am Adam Painter, and I am lead horticulturist at
the San Diego Zoo.
Speaker 4 (01:47):
Friend, thank you so much for being there, by the way,
you appreciate it. You know, as our listeners out last time,
we talked about lines and got into how amazing these
carnivores are, and it got us thinking, like, you know,
there's some of the carnivores around the world the right night, friend,
and you represent the horticulture team, So can you hint.
Speaker 2 (02:04):
To our listeners right now what are we going to
be talking about today?
Speaker 5 (02:06):
So today we're going to talk about carnivorous plants and
definitely some of the coolest plants that we have the
San Diego Zoo. I've been lucky enough to work with
them for about last eleven years and it's a collection, definitely,
but it's a collection that we have found so much
passion that our guests have for and so we're really
(02:27):
been expanding it and we're excited about the future.
Speaker 3 (02:30):
Before we get into it, because there is so much
just to explain to our audience. We are in the
Horticulture team room office where there's a meeting table.
Speaker 1 (02:38):
Adam has brought in.
Speaker 3 (02:39):
It looks like at least eight ten plants.
Speaker 5 (02:42):
Oh more than that.
Speaker 1 (02:43):
We filled one down on the floor. And this is
this is He has brought the jungle into this room.
Speaker 2 (02:48):
Now there's a venus flight trap staring at it right,
it's looking at it.
Speaker 3 (02:52):
But before we get into all the cool things, I mean,
this is gonna be a long episode, folks, So hold on,
it's gonna be a lot of fun. Where at the
San Diego Zoo when people show up here where can
they see some of these carnivorous plants.
Speaker 5 (03:04):
So if you guys are Heaver heading through Elephant Odyssey,
heading towards Polars, or if you're coming across the bridge
from Monkey Trails when you get to where main wolves
and the Skyfari area is right across from the bathrooms
is our carnivo's garden and our pollinator garden, which is
ironic that the plants they eat the bugs all right
(03:26):
next to the plants that attract the bugs. But it's
working well.
Speaker 1 (03:29):
For our food truck.
Speaker 2 (03:31):
It's Mother Nature, right.
Speaker 5 (03:32):
Yeah, if you know the zoo, our botanical collection is
throughout the entire campus, but there's very few spots that
are just horticulture based spots. And we were so lucky that, gosh,
maybe about six years ago Entomology gave us the greenhouse
over there that was just sitting blank wow, and it
just has expanding into what it is. So now guests
(03:54):
can go see our carnivous collection and our pollinator collection
and they can stay as long as they want and
kind of free flow in and out of that.
Speaker 2 (04:02):
Yeah, and you also have a plant tour that you
offer once a month.
Speaker 5 (04:06):
Yeah, so as long as we're here. I'll plug that
right now.
Speaker 1 (04:10):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (04:11):
So we do Plant Day. It's the third Friday of
every month here at the San Diego Zoo, our Orchid House,
which is world classes open to the public from ten
to two. Just outside that, we do a plant sale,
which some stuff that we've propagated here at the Zoo.
So it's a fun way to take home a little
piece of the zoo and grow it yourself. And I
have some carnivorous plants over the last few plants sales,
(04:31):
so that's cool. We do two plant tours bus tours now,
which we used to just do one, but it was
selling out so much that we do two and I
believe that is eleven and twelve, don't hold me to that.
And then over at the Carnivorous Garden, we set up
a booth, we bring our plants out and we hang
out with the guests from about ten to one, answering
(04:53):
all the questions and talking about just carnivorous plants.
Speaker 1 (04:56):
I've seen it.
Speaker 4 (04:56):
It's an awesome tour. And just remind you check out
our website San Diego Zoo dot or. All that information
is out there. And to your point out, I mean,
we're we're botanical gardens. Right, over a million plants are
thriving at the zoo and the Safari Park on.
Speaker 5 (05:07):
That end, right, one of the most visited botanical gardens
in the United States, for sure, And we're an amazing zoo.
But we're even more special because of the palette of
plant material that's here. I mean, you go to Eo
and you feel like you're in the desert, you go
down through monkey trails, all of a sudden you're in
the jungle. It's a great place. We are lucky, You're
totally lucky.
Speaker 3 (05:28):
Not only that, the topography of the zoo and the
climate we have here in San Diego offers so many.
Speaker 1 (05:31):
Opportunities for these different species around the world to thrive.
Speaker 5 (05:34):
Yeah, it's so diverse what we can grow here. Oh yeah,
we're lucky.
Speaker 2 (05:37):
I mean I love the succulent garden.
Speaker 4 (05:39):
I mean trees, the fig trees were talked about, bamboo,
which I and Panada. So what's unique about these plants?
I mean other plants you know there getting nutrients in
other ways? Can you give me in like the basic
version for people who don't know what makes carnivorous plants carnivorous?
Speaker 2 (05:52):
Like the why of it?
Speaker 5 (05:52):
Right?
Speaker 1 (05:53):
How do they chase down their friend? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (05:55):
That tell me that because I'm looking on it right now.
I got to be a little careful. Yeah, let me know, friend,
what's going on with So.
Speaker 5 (06:00):
What they have in common is they come from an
area where all the nutrient soil has been washed away.
So a lot of these plants are bog plants and
water has just washed all the nutrients away. So you
find them in a lot of peat bogs, very silty.
It drains really well, but there's no nutrient values. So
over millions of years, these plants have learned ways to
(06:22):
evolve and adapt to lure bugs in and then trap
them and digest them.
Speaker 1 (06:28):
And that's where their nutrients come from.
Speaker 5 (06:29):
And that's where mainly nitrogen, but some of their micronutrients too,
but basically nitrogen is the main one. So these plants
are all very sensitive in their roots, and so lots
of people like to try to grow these at home.
Speaker 1 (06:44):
They fail.
Speaker 5 (06:45):
I failed, But it's so easy to not fail. We
just have to know the few rules. And the first
one is because their roots are so sensitive, we can't
give them tap water. Okay, so our water has salt
and chlorine and other stuff in it, and so we
give them reverse osmosis water. You can give them rain water,
(07:05):
but it has to be down to about under one
hundred parts per million.
Speaker 1 (07:09):
Wow. So even just still water, distilled waters will use
at home.
Speaker 5 (07:13):
That's fine. That's fine. So yeah, you bring one home
and you just can't give it water off the hose
or out of us. The first thing. The second one
is they're very touch sensitives. We leave them alone and
some of the plants go dormant. So what we find
a lot of times is that people get one home
and then come the winter time, it goes to sleep
and they think their plant dies and they go ahead
(07:33):
and throw it away, or they bring it home and
they give it water out of the faucet and it
slowly poisons it. Of course, the next few months, you know,
it just doesn't well. Or if it's the Venus fire trapt,
you bring one home, you play with it because you
love watching, and it just can't handle that amount of
damage and it takes a while to recover.
Speaker 2 (07:52):
You and I we've talked about these before.
Speaker 4 (07:54):
You know, we always want to get plants in the conversation,
and it was easy to get plants, especially carnivorous plants
and some of this guys in the past, right, because
these things.
Speaker 2 (08:01):
Don't you guys remember a little soaperha I was singing,
suddenly see you more athough drive down here.
Speaker 4 (08:08):
But looking at these, I thought it'd be kind of
cool to mention how nuances really are, right, I keep
referencing the venus fly trap.
Speaker 3 (08:13):
Yeah, let's start there. I think regeneral public. We've seen
these in stores. Most people understand what a venus fly
trap looks like. As we're going through these, I want
to encourage our audience, So kids, ask your parents Google
search with image clicked for these species. A adam mentions
them because they all look so beautiful, so different, and
(08:34):
the nuances between how they capture their prey. But let's
start with the venus flight trap. I think that's probably
the one most people can picture in their minds.
Speaker 1 (08:41):
And we'll go down the row here.
Speaker 5 (08:43):
Of everything you brought, it's the one that everybody identifies with, right.
We've seen it in Mario Brothers. Oh, you've seen movies.
It's in cartoons, and everybody always thinks it's a lot bigger.
Speaker 2 (08:53):
Does it get any bigger?
Speaker 5 (08:54):
And it's funny because this is how we've started telling
our stories with the kids. Kids really identify with kind
of rist plants, and they love plants, they eat bucks.
But the venus fly trap is definitely the most popular,
and so they're found here in the United States, right
along the coast between North and South Carolina. There's about
one hundred square miles where you'll find these. People always
think that you're gonna find these in the middle of
(09:16):
the Amazon, you're tracking through the forests down there. Nope, nope, nope.
We got them right here in the United States. But
it's a small area, so it's a protected area. When
I first started, you could go poach venus fly traps
and you got a thirty five dollars fine, and it
doesn't matter how manywhere in your bag. Now you get
caught with one, it's like thirty five hundred dollars.
Speaker 1 (09:35):
And I just really quick.
Speaker 3 (09:37):
We've talked about poaching and wildlife trafficking on this show
a lot. I love that you're bringing this up because
I don't think people realize plants can be poached in
trafficked as well.
Speaker 1 (09:47):
They're part of the whole thing where.
Speaker 3 (09:49):
It's like taking things from the wild illegally. When they're protected,
comes with fines and jail time and everything else.
Speaker 1 (09:55):
Exactly exactly right.
Speaker 5 (09:57):
These guys are to penthes the tropical pitch bround to
talk about a little bit, and orchids are probably in
the top three that you find. So we are a
receiving point for border confiscations. So there was a time
about four years ago that it must have been either
five or ten thousand venus fly traps got stopped at
the San Francisco border and it got broken up through
(10:18):
a few facilities, but we got a few hundred of
them in yeah, and it was basically it wasn't that
they were necessarily brought in illegally. They didn't have the
right paperwork, right, and so they got stopped. And what
you find out is by the time it takes to
get the paperwork, the plants would perish. So they just
gave it up.
Speaker 4 (10:34):
I mean, I could see the need, right, I mean,
just can we talk about the mechanism because all these
I mean I know that they well I don't know
want to use hunt, but they entice plants in other
ways and maybe we can use I don't know, you
guys tell me, right.
Speaker 5 (10:45):
So it's described call an active trap, and I mean
that is it's one that actually moves, and it moves
pretty quickly.
Speaker 1 (10:51):
Right.
Speaker 5 (10:52):
So there's a few different things that draw the bugs in.
There is a nectar gland that runs right along the
rib where those eyelashes are. Okay, Okay, you're gonna see
the bright colors. They throw flowers, So those draw them in.
But we never have to feed these guys. These guys
draw the bugs in on their own. They catch so
many bugs.
Speaker 2 (11:10):
Let's say I'm a fly buddy, right and I'm cruising around.
Speaker 4 (11:12):
Oh, I see a little flower in there, and I'm
gonna crawl one of these little Is it a leaf?
Speaker 2 (11:17):
Is that I'm looking at the mouth of air?
Speaker 5 (11:19):
So the trap is a modified leaf. That's going to
be true as we talk about the different varieties. Okay,
So you go ahead, and you're in there, and you
see all that nice bright red and you're all excited
about you can smell the nectar gland. You land in there,
and then on either side of that trap, and that
trap is is already opened up, spring loaded like a
bear trap. And on either side of that leaf is
(11:41):
three little trigger hairs trigger okay, and so what it
wants is you to walk around and hit one of
those trigger hairs.
Speaker 2 (11:49):
Okay, so what if I did?
Speaker 1 (11:50):
What happened?
Speaker 5 (11:50):
So you bump that forst trigger hair and it sets
off its timer. Yet you have ten seconds to hit
the next trigger hair. If you walk around, you stumble,
and you hit that next trigger hair, the trap's gonna close.
And it's gonna close almost all the way, but not
quite all the way. Okay, if you were a tiny
little bug, you might be lucky enough to escape. But
(12:11):
if you're a big juicy fly, all right, the.
Speaker 2 (12:13):
Big juicy fly.
Speaker 5 (12:14):
You're a big juicy fly. Okay, and it closes.
Speaker 2 (12:16):
Get out.
Speaker 5 (12:17):
Now you're you're gonna obviously try to get out, and
in doing so, you're gonna trip those hairs a third, fourth,
fifth time. The venus fly trap needs a live meal.
And so what's gonna happen is once those hairs are
hit a few more times and then the plant knows
I've got a juicy live meal, and so it's gonna
close up all the way. It's gonna seel like a
(12:37):
ziploc bag. It's gonna fill up with its digestive juices,
which are a little bit of cidic, and there's enzymes
that are gonna break down all the soft parts of
that bug of you.
Speaker 1 (12:46):
Okay, all right, I'm breaking down.
Speaker 5 (12:47):
Breaking down. It's gonna look like a lima bean for
about a week or so, depending on how big you are.
Ok And then it's gonna suck up all those juices
and now it's got all your soft art, it's liquefied,
and then it's going to reopen and what you're gonna
see is the exoskeleton, just your bones, and it's gonna
wait for the rain or the wind to kind of
(13:08):
wash that away. So what's really cool about this is
it takes a lot of energy for a plant to
move right, Okay and fast?
Speaker 4 (13:17):
Yeah, And it's the trigger hair, right, So I'm thinking
like if a leaf or something, yes, yes.
Speaker 5 (13:22):
So you know in a rain storm, oh yeah, you know,
a couple droplets could get this to close. But it's
not gonna seal and fill up with fluid because there's
nothing alive moving around in there. So it has a
couple of fail safes to make sure it doesn't waste
any of that energy because each trap can only close
about six times, let's say, and then it's used up
(13:43):
all its energy and traps will die, and if you
you look at the one on the table, you'll see
some of the traps are browning out. So that one's done,
it's spent all its energy. So when we buy one
and it's got two or three traps on it and
you go home, you play with it and it closes,
it can only close about five or six times and
then it's done. So it's always producing more and more traps.
(14:04):
So what it does is remember how I said two
trigger hairs got hit and it closed almost all the way.
It stays like that for twenty four hours before it reopens.
It's not gonna let something mess with it and waste
of it. So it's like I said, they're reopen and
the close boom, boom boom, So it waits till tomorrow.
Darwin has said that this is the smartest plant on
(14:24):
planet Earth. It can count to ten, and it can
tell time, and it's pretty accurate on the ten second
rule and the twenty four hour They've done studies.
Speaker 4 (14:34):
And dude, we're just talking about one so far, right,
the first one and the mechanism, right, I'm looking at
the others, and you mentioned this is one specifically in
the United States.
Speaker 2 (14:43):
But we've talked about these affo A. I was gonna say,
there's a couple others.
Speaker 4 (14:46):
Right, one is my favorite, the sundew, But yeah, there's
two others we can talk about, right, the American picture
in the sun.
Speaker 2 (14:51):
Do can you describe to us the difference in what
they do?
Speaker 5 (14:54):
Yeah, So we have another picture plant. It's the North
American picture plant. Those guys are found from Florida all
the way up the eastern seaboard almost into Annada. Yeah, exactly,
and the varieties change. These are vase like shaped leaves
and again it's the trap is the modified leaf. Everything
(15:15):
from two inches tall to three feet tall. These pictures
feet and it's like a big two it's like an
open face shapes. Some of them have lids. The lids
don't close, but it helps keep the rain water from
filling up the vase where it would fall over and
not be successful and trapping. We have some on the
(15:35):
West coast. It's called the Darlingtonia that's found northern California
and up in those parts.
Speaker 3 (15:41):
One observation I want to make real quick for our
audience too, that I think is fascinating about picture plants
is you said they're the vase shape.
Speaker 1 (15:47):
But to actually look at it and think this is
a leaf.
Speaker 3 (15:50):
And for the most part we think leaves. We think
flat and either grass like like the bamboo leaf, or
broad like a maple leaf, or you know, even pine.
Speaker 1 (16:00):
Trees with their needles. That's a type of leaf. But
to think that this leaf is tubular.
Speaker 3 (16:05):
To a certain extent, and then as you mentioned, some
sort of extra piece it looks like it could be
a lid or a flap. It's really just amazing to
think how these plants came about.
Speaker 1 (16:14):
This is a leaf structure.
Speaker 5 (16:16):
Oh yeah, yeah, And they vary so much. And beautiful colors.
Speaker 2 (16:20):
I say, I fum a fly and I see this
beautiful color? Is it the color I'm enticed at?
Speaker 1 (16:24):
Or what? Also?
Speaker 5 (16:25):
And and bugsy and ultra violet. So some of these
plants are like a glowing me onside dinner. You can
see the one that I have kind of on the
floor there there's a leucidendrin the type, Yeah, exactly. So
these guys are living in the bog along with venus
(16:46):
fly traps and sundews and basically there are passive traps.
So they sit there looking beautiful. Where's flowers involved? It's
been said that some varieties of saracenia, so the North
America pitch plant is called. If the kids want to
look this up, a field of sarasenias would smell like
cat urine, smell like the exactly. So I always tell
(17:08):
the kids it's not always the good smells. The bus in. Yeah,
so there's the odor that goes with them. They also
have a nectar gland underneath their lid that the bugs
are interested in. Some of the varieties have a little
powder along the lip, and the lip is very slippery.
So between that and all the flowers and smells, the
bugs are drawn in. They see that neon sign, and
(17:30):
a bug, you know, is after that nectar gland lands
on the lip, and the powder that's on there is
almost like a neurotoxin makes them a little woozy, and
it's very slippery, like we said, and they fall in. Now,
the first third of that picture is very slippery shingles
like you'd find on your roof overlapping. Yeah, and so
as the bug is trying to crawl out, those are
(17:51):
kind of like just the roof is falling in on them. Yeah,
So they fall a little further and then they're going
to encounter these downward fears hairs that keep them from
being able to crawl back out, and they just sit
there until they die and then the next bug lands
on top of them.
Speaker 2 (18:08):
What a beautiful story. It's like the ultimate slip inside.
Speaker 5 (18:15):
And they slowly decompose and break down. And you've seen
we've dissected these before and so if you open one up,
they can just be riddled with bugs. And so these
guys go dormant in the winter. So in the winter
you're going to see these tiny, little, very flat leaf
looking things that were popping out of the ground. And
then they wake up in the spring and they throw
(18:36):
the flower. That is amazing. Their flowers are so crazy.
It looks like an upside down umbrella. But what's great
about is is it has such a small window for pollinating.
It doesn't want to trap the bees that it needs
for parping. So here it is it's late winter, early spring,
(18:56):
it wakes up, it throws its flowers, and it lets
these jump into these upside down umbrellas. So if the
pollen falls, it falls into the umbrella and they roll
around in it and they jump around and it makes
the pollination process really efficient. Yeah, okay, and then the
flowers basically after they've been pollinated, they lift upright and
they drop their seats around and they go away. And
(19:18):
then this produces pictures, and so I would say by
late March or starting to see varieties of the picture.
And then it traps bugs those bees. It doesn't care.
It eats bees all year long except for during pollination.
Speaker 3 (19:32):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (19:32):
I can just see the story that one beingamed Bill.
Speaker 4 (19:34):
Hey, Tad, do you remember that delicious little flower? Let's
go check it out.
Speaker 3 (19:37):
Late you had mentioned with the venus fly trap that
there's some enzymes on liquid that goes in once they
have sealed up around their prey. Is there anything at
the bottom of the picture plant?
Speaker 5 (19:47):
Okay, yes, And that's the difference between these guys in
the tropical There is fluid in the bottom of these
guys in the American a ton though. I open them up,
you'll get a huge oplets that you But it is
damp and moist in there, and these bugs are basically
breaking down and it just all funnels down. Like I said,
(20:08):
it's very shaped, so all the nutrients just work their
way down.
Speaker 1 (20:11):
And the plants just sucks that back.
Speaker 5 (20:12):
And this guy is going to trap from late March
all the way until about November and maybe in December,
and we usually cut them down at Super Bowl. That's
my marker for Super Bowl happens. I go and cut
all the pictures down because here in San Diego we
don't have much of a winter, so I have to
fake it. And so by that I just cut everything down.
Speaker 2 (20:35):
I mean it makes sense, right, species specific nuances.
Speaker 5 (20:38):
And then we open up the pictures for summer camps
and we dissect them and see what kind of bugs
we got in.
Speaker 3 (20:43):
Okay, so we've got flight frap. We got the picture
plants next one of the center of the table. This
is my favorite, Marco's favorite, and my daughter's favorite.
Speaker 1 (20:50):
Yes, the beautiful sun dew.
Speaker 3 (20:51):
Can you just describe it to those who don't know
what a sundew looks like?
Speaker 5 (20:55):
So a sundew, how do you describe these tendrils?
Speaker 1 (20:59):
Right?
Speaker 5 (20:59):
Yeah, yeah, long little tendrils that glisten in the sun
like and if you hold it up to the light,
you just it's beaming. It looks sweet, It looks like
something you would want to taste if you were a bug.
They have beautiful flowers and they have probably the worst.
Speaker 2 (21:21):
A nice hug of death.
Speaker 3 (21:22):
You can.
Speaker 1 (21:24):
Sound as nice as you watch.
Speaker 5 (21:25):
It's a horrible way to go. So these plants are
very sticky, and that glistening dew is basically inadhesive. And
so again I relate.
Speaker 1 (21:40):
I see it.
Speaker 2 (21:40):
It's so sparkly, I see the light. You says, I'm
gonna fly towards it. So I just landed. It's so sticky.
What's what's going on now?
Speaker 5 (21:49):
So it's that glistening dew, like we said, is an adhesive, okay.
And if you were to blow your nose into your
hands okay, and you were to rub your fingers in it,
that's about how sticky this guy is. So you're not
it's not super glue. You're not stuck there for the
rest of your life. But if you're a bug, stuck
(22:11):
on that right, But it's just sticky enough to get
on your wings and to clog your breathing ducks. And
so this plant is touched sensitive, and as soon as
a bug lands on it, it knows it, it feels it.
If you look really close, there's tiny little hairs and
those hairs are going to slowly start to lay down
on the bug. And as the bug fights. The more
(22:33):
the more mucous, the secrete like a spider web. Almost
stick here, stick here. So I brought this guy in.
This is philiformous and it is riddled with bugs. If
you guys take a close look, and there's a moth.
We did a talk with summer camp kids last week
and I had a couple of bees that were stucking
(22:53):
and for the kids to actually see the bees were
still still fighting a little bit. There are versions of
it where the will slowly start to curl over a bug,
and if the kids look those up on YouTube, there's
great sundew videos. The botanical name is dross and they
come in all different shapes and sizes. They are found
on every content except for antartic. Every content, and we
(23:16):
always joke they are the weed of the carnivorous family.
They pop up in everything.
Speaker 3 (23:22):
I was going to say, it looks like there's some.
Speaker 5 (23:25):
Some in there we don't that just is on its own.
That's some of the ones that we do at our
plant sale. This is a really easy one to grow.
So you put it in a little dish and to
still water. Stick it in your kitchen window. No more
gnats and more fruits, hopefully, you don't have too many mosquitoes.
And then as soon as you don't see any more bugs,
(23:46):
you go ahead and put it outside in the full
sun and you just never let it dry out. Remember
these coming from bogs or swamps, and they want to
stay wet. So as long as you have a little
bit of water in a small little tray and you
just keep it wet that way, you're going to be
gone for a few weeks. Just put it in a
deeper tray.
Speaker 3 (24:03):
Yeah, just.
Speaker 4 (24:07):
So many different mechanisms for hunting, right, I mean, we
got to be in this fly trap, the mouth clamping,
those jaws.
Speaker 5 (24:17):
It's a crazy type of hunting because you want what
I've got, you know what I mean, I don't have
to go find you. You come to me. When we
do our plant talks third Friday, all of a sudden,
you notice there's just bugs are everywhere. Like I bring
the plants out on the table, and over the course
the next few hours, the bugs showing.
Speaker 1 (24:35):
Plants are soliciting that attention.
Speaker 4 (24:38):
There's another one I wanted to highlight really quick because
we talked about the picture plants, right, But there's asiatic species,
right that have a different variation or they're a little
higher up, but still the same idea.
Speaker 5 (24:48):
It's a different species. They're called the penthees pentes, yes,
and so it's a tropical picture plant. These guys are
more epiphytic, so.
Speaker 1 (24:58):
It's not an animal, I don't know.
Speaker 5 (25:00):
Yeah, so these guys more live up in the crotches
of trees. Oh faces on the side that are terrestrial,
which means they live in the soil. So these guys
don't have as much soil around their roots, and they
will kind of cling to a tree and you can
see some of the ones I brought. You can see
how they would out yea and they.
Speaker 1 (25:21):
Would just edge of the table even.
Speaker 4 (25:24):
Yeah, we have a good display over a tiger trail, correct,
Like there's a new habitat there, so you're staring at
a really cool orange or black predator. But then if
you turn around and you get to see a different
predator out there.
Speaker 5 (25:34):
So they have very niche climate zones that they come from.
And so we have a whole bunch over by the
Pollinator Garden. But we have some few very rare species
that we were lucky enough to get donated to us
in the last couple of years because our program has
been doing so well, and those plants needed a lot
more heat and a lot more humidity and so over
(25:55):
by tigers. Yeah, we took over this nice little display
and Rich takes care of our collection. Rich Riley, he's
doing an amazing job. He set that all up and
it's great. So another little spot of just horticulture over there. Yeah,
a little gym.
Speaker 2 (26:11):
Tell me if I'm wrong, friend.
Speaker 4 (26:12):
But some of these species, the picture plant in particular,
that instead of like trying to lure insects in and
processing that with the en zemes and whatnot, there are
some that are actually trying to encourage certain bat species
and frogs right to sleep into the picture because you know,
they eat something and something comes out right.
Speaker 5 (26:29):
And there's lots of insects and animals that have some
type of symbiotic relationship where they they help each other
out basically. So going back to the nepenthes, because he
has a couple cool stories, but there's other ones that
they do across the board. So just like the American
picture plant, right, we have these amazing pictures that are
(26:50):
the modified leaves and they come in beautiful shapes, beautiful
look at what I see. I wish our guests could see.
Speaker 1 (27:00):
Gotta come to we're seeing.
Speaker 5 (27:01):
They come in all shapes and sizes, all different colors,
from pictures that are just a couple inches tall to
about the size of a two liter bottle. And so
spiders love to lay a little web across the opening,
maybe catch something that.
Speaker 1 (27:18):
That might go in.
Speaker 5 (27:18):
Spiders also drop a line go down there, steal side
the back. These pictures actually have more of a reservoir
of fluid, digestive fluid at the bottom of and before
I said, if we opened one up, you get a
few droplets. It's very moist in there. These guys actually
if you poured it into your hand, you'd have several
ounces of fluid in there. And so again it's acidic.
(27:41):
There's enzymes, there's bacteria that live in there and help
break down the bugs that fall in. They work the
same way. They've got that nectar gland. There is a
tree shrew in Borneo that loves to sit on the
lip of the picture. He licks the nectar gland. It
upsets his tummy. He goes to the bathroom in the picture.
Breakfast helps fertilize, so that actually benefits the plant. Yeah right, yeah,
(28:05):
And then they're like you're saying, they're been known to
have bats, yeahs from there. Yeah, I haven't heard that one,
but I'm sure.
Speaker 2 (28:13):
It's wild, right, Yeah.
Speaker 5 (28:15):
Yeah, there are moss that roosts in there, and then
there's you know, little frogs and lizards that go in
there thinking that they want to get some of that
soup and then find that they can't get out. And
so I've even found lizards in some of our pictures
over the years.
Speaker 4 (28:29):
Yeah, yeah, folks, I mean you hear it right, not
just great whites.
Speaker 2 (28:32):
Not just lions tying carnivorous plants.
Speaker 3 (28:36):
We're getting ready to wrap up here, but I want
to just point out so our audience, if you don't
get a chance to look somebody's up online the first
set of North American picture plants. This is like a
vase sitting on the ground, a cluster of vases sitting
on the ground open up.
Speaker 1 (28:47):
Whereas more of the asiatic species.
Speaker 3 (28:49):
They remind me almost of a spider plant in that
not the leaf structure necessarily, but you have these strands
or shoots that come off and the pictures hanging down
below that. So you'd mentioned they're up in trees around
rock out croppings. So these things are hanging down low.
They're really trying to cover as much space as possible
to get out.
Speaker 5 (29:04):
There have a very orchid kind of low and I
brought one that is kind of cool. It's a species
that there's only a few in the world and we've
got one. And it is a carnivorous vermeiliad. It's in
the pineapple family and it does but its pineapple family, well,
(29:25):
pineapples are in the vermilion.
Speaker 1 (29:26):
I learned something.
Speaker 5 (29:28):
And if you guys know vermilions, they have a shape
where they collect water themselves, and this one collects water
and leaf material and some bugs and it breaks it
down and I have that on the chair over there.
So that was a cool one.
Speaker 3 (29:42):
Well, there's one other one you brought into that you
said is similar to a related.
Speaker 5 (29:46):
To in its own family. Don't works like the sundew
that it's a sticky trap and it's a pinglaris and
we call them pings and they live in rocks in
these little spots, but all the surfaces of of them
are sticky, not super sticky, just a little bit sticky.
We call them the velcrow plant. And so a little
(30:06):
net lands on it and can't move, and it just
dissolves the net where it stands.
Speaker 1 (30:11):
Here's what I want to audience to know. He's bringing
in all these these picture.
Speaker 3 (30:14):
Plants and the sundewes and the venus fly taps, and
these are all like, yeah, these are clearly there's traps,
so there's a way for a bug to get eaten.
Speaker 1 (30:21):
He brings us when it and there's like three little
not much.
Speaker 3 (30:24):
Bigger than a small rose as far as diameter, and they're.
Speaker 1 (30:28):
Flat to the rock. They look just like little flat petals.
Oh it's pretty. But I'm like, I thought it was
a succulent when I walked in there.
Speaker 3 (30:35):
Maybe maybe it grows something later bugs And he's like, no,
it's like a velcrow plant.
Speaker 1 (30:40):
Never heard of that. It's so cool.
Speaker 3 (30:42):
Again, the diversity within the carnivorous plants.
Speaker 1 (30:45):
I think we all initially think venus fly.
Speaker 3 (30:47):
Fap, but they get all the other diversity of how
plants have figured out to find nutrients and spaces that
otherwise not dense with nutrients for them.
Speaker 5 (30:55):
There is carnivorous moss and they actually carnivorous moss. Yeah,
and it eats them tooads that are in the soil
so they're eating stuff below the surface of the soil.
There is one called a bladderword that lives in the water,
and this is a cool one if kids ever want
to look up a Yeah. So it is basically almost
like a penthes in shape and it has little trigger
(31:19):
hairs like a venus fly trap, and a little little
bug underwater bug hits that hair and it works like
a vacuum. It just opens up about and sucks it in.
Speaker 2 (31:28):
It's like a plant a lot, right.
Speaker 5 (31:32):
We just haven't had a way where we can incorporate
them into our collection. We would need some fish tanks,
yeah tell me, but yeah, and then you know, there's
other plants that we don't even think of. Are you
guys familiar with the birdcatcher plant? The personia? So we
have them throughout the zoo. A beautiful foliage. It's kind
of a white and clearly aviary though, and when they flower,
(31:55):
we try to collect the flowers because we don't want
any of our native birds. But it's crazy about it
is a very sticky, sticky flower, and our bird keepers
love our birds so much that throw like at and
get those flowers out of it. But it's not so
much that a bird sticks to the flower as What
happens is these flowers drop and they line the jungle
bed with this very sticky material. A baby bird falls
(32:18):
out of its nest lands in there and gets this
all over him and basically dies. But guess we die
at the base of base of the plant and decomposes.
So this plant plant birds, it's breaking down and it's
going into the soil and it's fertilizing.
Speaker 2 (32:34):
I've never heard of this one before.
Speaker 5 (32:36):
That's incredible. We don't consider it necessarily your traditional carnivor, but.
Speaker 1 (32:42):
That work. Yeah, exactly whoa I know?
Speaker 2 (32:48):
Can we do another episode? So much?
Speaker 5 (32:50):
I know?
Speaker 2 (32:51):
And oh there's so much to talk about you.
Speaker 5 (32:53):
Yes, I mean, I'm a horticulturist. I've been working with
plants since I was eighteen years old. But I am
so lucky that I get to work here, you know
what I mean, Like I could be I could be
your gardener, mowing and your lawn. But I'm lucky enough
that I get to work with some of the most
amazing plants in the world and some of the most
amazing people. And I get to talk to you guys. Sweet.
Speaker 1 (33:18):
Yeah, I know, this is great, Adam.
Speaker 3 (33:19):
I think seriously, might have to revisit place yeah next
season or something.
Speaker 2 (33:24):
But this episode maybe too.
Speaker 1 (33:26):
This has been so much information. Thank you so much,
appreciate your time.
Speaker 5 (33:30):
Yeah, you can come visit me on third Friday of
the month. You got to see what was on the table?
Speaker 2 (33:36):
Yeah, absolutely, yes, thanks again, thank.
Speaker 1 (33:39):
You, Marco.
Speaker 3 (33:41):
We absolutely must go back and talk to Adam next season.
That was fascinating.
Speaker 2 (33:46):
I know what you mean.
Speaker 4 (33:48):
I mean, I thought I already knew a lot about
carnivorous plants, but now I feel like I have so
much more to learn. Like you know, I had no
idea there was a plant out there that can actually
trap the words so they could tea at the base
of the plant and become fertilizer.
Speaker 2 (34:03):
Are you kidding me?
Speaker 1 (34:03):
Seriously? Mind blowing?
Speaker 3 (34:05):
And what about the bladder work these little underwater carnivorous plants.
I mean always thot carnivorous plants eight you know, flying
or terrestrial insects of some sort. I had no idea
there are aquatic ones that eight little underwater critters too.
Speaker 4 (34:17):
Okay, Okay, I know we're having fun geeking out about this.
Speaker 1 (34:21):
This is the last one, I promise, I can.
Speaker 4 (34:22):
Promise the fact that the venus flytrap is so precise
with its timing and can actually tell the difference between
say a rain drop or a leaf falling into it
versus an insect.
Speaker 3 (34:33):
Yeah, I know, I mean plants technically don't have a
brain and nervous system like animals. But the venus fly
trap does make me wonder if we haven't maybe given
plants enough credit when it comes to the whole brains
department hundred percent.
Speaker 4 (34:45):
And it's funny, you know, I was just thinking out
hard of culture and taking care of all these diverse
plants is as unique as all the different mammal, bird,
and reptile care specialists. You know, there were so many
nuances and specialties within each animal group. It feels like
it's the same way for these amazing plants too.
Speaker 1 (35:03):
Oh, I know exactly what you mean, Marco.
Speaker 3 (35:04):
There are so many different things people do when it
comes to plant and wildlifecare. For example, did you know
there are wildlifecare specialists that work night shifts?
Speaker 2 (35:11):
You know what? I didn't know that.
Speaker 4 (35:13):
Of course, although most people might think it's just to
take care of nocturnal animals, there's actually a lot more
to it than that.
Speaker 1 (35:19):
Wait, a minute.
Speaker 3 (35:20):
Are you saying there's a topic about wildlife care that
is unique and most people don't know about it.
Speaker 4 (35:26):
I am sir, and I bet our audience would enjoy
learning more about it.
Speaker 1 (35:30):
Well, there it is.
Speaker 3 (35:31):
Be sure to subscribe and tune into our next episode,
in which we learn more about the nocturnal behavior of
the nighttime Wildlifecare specialist team.
Speaker 1 (35:42):
I'm Marco Went and I'm Richwartz. Thanks for listening.
Speaker 3 (35:50):
For more information about the San Diego Zoo and San
Diego Zoo Safari Park, go to SDZWA dot org. Amazing
Wildlife is a production of iHeartRadio. Our supervising producers are
Nikkia Swinton and Dylan Fagan, and our sound designers are
Sierra Spreen and Matt Russell. For more shows from iHeartRadio,
check out the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you
(36:11):
listen to your favorite shows.
Hi, I'm Rick Schwartz.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
When is the s World?
Speaker 3 (00:07):
I'm Marco went Welcome to Amazing Wildlife, where we explore
unique stories of wildlife from around the world and uncover
fascinating animal facts. This podcast is a production of iHeartRadio's
Ruy Studio and San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance in international
nonprofit conservation organization which oversees the San Diego Zoo and
Safari Park. All Right, Marco, our last episode was about
(00:29):
one of the larger species of carnivorous cat, the lion,
And at the end of that show, you had an
idea tohead of the zoo for this episode.
Speaker 4 (00:36):
That's throughout, amigo, and that is because I have fallen
in love with a different kind of connivor.
Speaker 1 (00:42):
My friend.
Speaker 3 (00:43):
Let me guess, it's got to be some sort of
bird of prey, right, Oh uh stork?
Speaker 1 (00:47):
No, no secretary bird.
Speaker 4 (00:50):
All super good guesses. Bet believe it or not, Dude,
it's not a bird.
Speaker 1 (00:54):
Well, I'm honestly surprised us not a bird.
Speaker 3 (00:57):
We haven't done an episode about birds since what seven,
when we learned all about the milky stores, which also
happened to be carnivores.
Speaker 2 (01:03):
Yeah, that's true, man, And you know that does remind me.
Speaker 4 (01:06):
Although the species we're talking about today does have the
word carnivorous in its name, it tends to be more
of an insectivore, with only a few eating things like
small mammals, amphibians, you know, things like that.
Speaker 1 (01:18):
Oh, I know.
Speaker 3 (01:20):
Now we're heading to the zoo to check out an
insect of some sort like oh, those giant spiders or something.
Speaker 4 (01:26):
Right, that is an awesome guest, Rick, and also good
at it for an episode.
Speaker 2 (01:30):
But that's not it. I know, you know what.
Speaker 4 (01:32):
We are going to head to the San Diego Zoo
to meet up with well, you know, maybe I'm gonna
let our guests tell us.
Speaker 2 (01:37):
So where are you going? Man, Let's go to the zoo.
Speaker 5 (01:42):
I am Adam Painter, and I am lead horticulturist at
the San Diego Zoo.
Speaker 4 (01:47):
Friend, thank you so much for being there, by the way,
you appreciate it. You know, as our listeners out last time,
we talked about lines and got into how amazing these
carnivores are, and it got us thinking, like, you know,
there's some of the carnivores around the world the right night, friend,
and you represent the horticulture team, So can you hint.
Speaker 2 (02:04):
To our listeners right now what are we going to
be talking about today?
Speaker 5 (02:06):
So today we're going to talk about carnivorous plants and
definitely some of the coolest plants that we have the
San Diego Zoo. I've been lucky enough to work with
them for about last eleven years and it's a collection, definitely,
but it's a collection that we have found so much
passion that our guests have for and so we're really
(02:27):
been expanding it and we're excited about the future.
Speaker 3 (02:30):
Before we get into it, because there is so much
just to explain to our audience. We are in the
Horticulture team room office where there's a meeting table.
Speaker 1 (02:38):
Adam has brought in.
Speaker 3 (02:39):
It looks like at least eight ten plants.
Speaker 5 (02:42):
Oh more than that.
Speaker 1 (02:43):
We filled one down on the floor. And this is
this is He has brought the jungle into this room.
Speaker 2 (02:48):
Now there's a venus flight trap staring at it right,
it's looking at it.
Speaker 3 (02:52):
But before we get into all the cool things, I mean,
this is gonna be a long episode, folks, So hold on,
it's gonna be a lot of fun. Where at the
San Diego Zoo when people show up here where can
they see some of these carnivorous plants.
Speaker 5 (03:04):
So if you guys are Heaver heading through Elephant Odyssey,
heading towards Polars, or if you're coming across the bridge
from Monkey Trails when you get to where main wolves
and the Skyfari area is right across from the bathrooms
is our carnivo's garden and our pollinator garden, which is
ironic that the plants they eat the bugs all right
(03:26):
next to the plants that attract the bugs. But it's
working well.
Speaker 1 (03:29):
For our food truck.
Speaker 2 (03:31):
It's Mother Nature, right.
Speaker 5 (03:32):
Yeah, if you know the zoo, our botanical collection is
throughout the entire campus, but there's very few spots that
are just horticulture based spots. And we were so lucky that, gosh,
maybe about six years ago Entomology gave us the greenhouse
over there that was just sitting blank wow, and it
just has expanding into what it is. So now guests
(03:54):
can go see our carnivous collection and our pollinator collection
and they can stay as long as they want and
kind of free flow in and out of that.
Speaker 2 (04:02):
Yeah, and you also have a plant tour that you
offer once a month.
Speaker 5 (04:06):
Yeah, so as long as we're here. I'll plug that
right now.
Speaker 1 (04:10):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (04:11):
So we do Plant Day. It's the third Friday of
every month here at the San Diego Zoo, our Orchid House,
which is world classes open to the public from ten
to two. Just outside that, we do a plant sale,
which some stuff that we've propagated here at the Zoo.
So it's a fun way to take home a little
piece of the zoo and grow it yourself. And I
have some carnivorous plants over the last few plants sales,
(04:31):
so that's cool. We do two plant tours bus tours now,
which we used to just do one, but it was
selling out so much that we do two and I
believe that is eleven and twelve, don't hold me to that.
And then over at the Carnivorous Garden, we set up
a booth, we bring our plants out and we hang
out with the guests from about ten to one, answering
(04:53):
all the questions and talking about just carnivorous plants.
Speaker 1 (04:56):
I've seen it.
Speaker 4 (04:56):
It's an awesome tour. And just remind you check out
our website San Diego Zoo dot or. All that information
is out there. And to your point out, I mean,
we're we're botanical gardens. Right, over a million plants are
thriving at the zoo and the Safari Park on.
Speaker 5 (05:07):
That end, right, one of the most visited botanical gardens
in the United States, for sure, And we're an amazing zoo.
But we're even more special because of the palette of
plant material that's here. I mean, you go to Eo
and you feel like you're in the desert, you go
down through monkey trails, all of a sudden you're in
the jungle. It's a great place. We are lucky, You're
totally lucky.
Speaker 3 (05:28):
Not only that, the topography of the zoo and the
climate we have here in San Diego offers so many.
Speaker 1 (05:31):
Opportunities for these different species around the world to thrive.
Speaker 5 (05:34):
Yeah, it's so diverse what we can grow here. Oh yeah,
we're lucky.
Speaker 2 (05:37):
I mean I love the succulent garden.
Speaker 4 (05:39):
I mean trees, the fig trees were talked about, bamboo,
which I and Panada. So what's unique about these plants?
I mean other plants you know there getting nutrients in
other ways? Can you give me in like the basic
version for people who don't know what makes carnivorous plants carnivorous?
Speaker 2 (05:52):
Like the why of it?
Speaker 5 (05:52):
Right?
Speaker 1 (05:53):
How do they chase down their friend? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (05:55):
That tell me that because I'm looking on it right now.
I got to be a little careful. Yeah, let me know, friend,
what's going on with So.
Speaker 5 (06:00):
What they have in common is they come from an
area where all the nutrient soil has been washed away.
So a lot of these plants are bog plants and
water has just washed all the nutrients away. So you
find them in a lot of peat bogs, very silty.
It drains really well, but there's no nutrient values. So
over millions of years, these plants have learned ways to
(06:22):
evolve and adapt to lure bugs in and then trap
them and digest them.
Speaker 1 (06:28):
And that's where their nutrients come from.
Speaker 5 (06:29):
And that's where mainly nitrogen, but some of their micronutrients too,
but basically nitrogen is the main one. So these plants
are all very sensitive in their roots, and so lots
of people like to try to grow these at home.
Speaker 1 (06:44):
They fail.
Speaker 5 (06:45):
I failed, But it's so easy to not fail. We
just have to know the few rules. And the first
one is because their roots are so sensitive, we can't
give them tap water. Okay, so our water has salt
and chlorine and other stuff in it, and so we
give them reverse osmosis water. You can give them rain water,
(07:05):
but it has to be down to about under one
hundred parts per million.
Speaker 1 (07:09):
Wow. So even just still water, distilled waters will use
at home.
Speaker 5 (07:13):
That's fine. That's fine. So yeah, you bring one home
and you just can't give it water off the hose
or out of us. The first thing. The second one
is they're very touch sensitives. We leave them alone and
some of the plants go dormant. So what we find
a lot of times is that people get one home
and then come the winter time, it goes to sleep
and they think their plant dies and they go ahead
(07:33):
and throw it away, or they bring it home and
they give it water out of the faucet and it
slowly poisons it. Of course, the next few months, you know,
it just doesn't well. Or if it's the Venus fire trapt,
you bring one home, you play with it because you
love watching, and it just can't handle that amount of
damage and it takes a while to recover.
Speaker 2 (07:52):
You and I we've talked about these before.
Speaker 4 (07:54):
You know, we always want to get plants in the conversation,
and it was easy to get plants, especially carnivorous plants
and some of this guys in the past, right, because
these things.
Speaker 2 (08:01):
Don't you guys remember a little soaperha I was singing,
suddenly see you more athough drive down here.
Speaker 4 (08:08):
But looking at these, I thought it'd be kind of
cool to mention how nuances really are, right, I keep
referencing the venus fly trap.
Speaker 3 (08:13):
Yeah, let's start there. I think regeneral public. We've seen
these in stores. Most people understand what a venus fly
trap looks like. As we're going through these, I want
to encourage our audience, So kids, ask your parents Google
search with image clicked for these species. A adam mentions
them because they all look so beautiful, so different, and
(08:34):
the nuances between how they capture their prey. But let's
start with the venus flight trap. I think that's probably
the one most people can picture in their minds.
Speaker 1 (08:41):
And we'll go down the row here.
Speaker 5 (08:43):
Of everything you brought, it's the one that everybody identifies with, right.
We've seen it in Mario Brothers. Oh, you've seen movies.
It's in cartoons, and everybody always thinks it's a lot bigger.
Speaker 2 (08:53):
Does it get any bigger?
Speaker 5 (08:54):
And it's funny because this is how we've started telling
our stories with the kids. Kids really identify with kind
of rist plants, and they love plants, they eat bucks.
But the venus fly trap is definitely the most popular,
and so they're found here in the United States, right
along the coast between North and South Carolina. There's about
one hundred square miles where you'll find these. People always
think that you're gonna find these in the middle of
(09:16):
the Amazon, you're tracking through the forests down there. Nope, nope, nope.
We got them right here in the United States. But
it's a small area, so it's a protected area. When
I first started, you could go poach venus fly traps
and you got a thirty five dollars fine, and it
doesn't matter how manywhere in your bag. Now you get
caught with one, it's like thirty five hundred dollars.
Speaker 1 (09:35):
And I just really quick.
Speaker 3 (09:37):
We've talked about poaching and wildlife trafficking on this show
a lot. I love that you're bringing this up because
I don't think people realize plants can be poached in
trafficked as well.
Speaker 1 (09:47):
They're part of the whole thing where.
Speaker 3 (09:49):
It's like taking things from the wild illegally. When they're protected,
comes with fines and jail time and everything else.
Speaker 1 (09:55):
Exactly exactly right.
Speaker 5 (09:57):
These guys are to penthes the tropical pitch bround to
talk about a little bit, and orchids are probably in
the top three that you find. So we are a
receiving point for border confiscations. So there was a time
about four years ago that it must have been either
five or ten thousand venus fly traps got stopped at
the San Francisco border and it got broken up through
(10:18):
a few facilities, but we got a few hundred of
them in yeah, and it was basically it wasn't that
they were necessarily brought in illegally. They didn't have the
right paperwork, right, and so they got stopped. And what
you find out is by the time it takes to
get the paperwork, the plants would perish. So they just
gave it up.
Speaker 4 (10:34):
I mean, I could see the need, right, I mean,
just can we talk about the mechanism because all these
I mean I know that they well I don't know
want to use hunt, but they entice plants in other
ways and maybe we can use I don't know, you
guys tell me, right.
Speaker 5 (10:45):
So it's described call an active trap, and I mean
that is it's one that actually moves, and it moves
pretty quickly.
Speaker 1 (10:51):
Right.
Speaker 5 (10:52):
So there's a few different things that draw the bugs in.
There is a nectar gland that runs right along the
rib where those eyelashes are. Okay, Okay, you're gonna see
the bright colors. They throw flowers, So those draw them in.
But we never have to feed these guys. These guys
draw the bugs in on their own. They catch so
many bugs.
Speaker 2 (11:10):
Let's say I'm a fly buddy, right and I'm cruising around.
Speaker 4 (11:12):
Oh, I see a little flower in there, and I'm
gonna crawl one of these little Is it a leaf?
Speaker 2 (11:17):
Is that I'm looking at the mouth of air?
Speaker 5 (11:19):
So the trap is a modified leaf. That's going to
be true as we talk about the different varieties. Okay,
So you go ahead, and you're in there, and you
see all that nice bright red and you're all excited
about you can smell the nectar gland. You land in there,
and then on either side of that trap, and that
trap is is already opened up, spring loaded like a
bear trap. And on either side of that leaf is
(11:41):
three little trigger hairs trigger okay, and so what it
wants is you to walk around and hit one of
those trigger hairs.
Speaker 2 (11:49):
Okay, so what if I did?
Speaker 1 (11:50):
What happened?
Speaker 5 (11:50):
So you bump that forst trigger hair and it sets
off its timer. Yet you have ten seconds to hit
the next trigger hair. If you walk around, you stumble,
and you hit that next trigger hair, the trap's gonna close.
And it's gonna close almost all the way, but not
quite all the way. Okay, if you were a tiny
little bug, you might be lucky enough to escape. But
(12:11):
if you're a big juicy fly, all right, the.
Speaker 2 (12:13):
Big juicy fly.
Speaker 5 (12:14):
You're a big juicy fly. Okay, and it closes.
Speaker 2 (12:16):
Get out.
Speaker 5 (12:17):
Now you're you're gonna obviously try to get out, and
in doing so, you're gonna trip those hairs a third, fourth,
fifth time. The venus fly trap needs a live meal.
And so what's gonna happen is once those hairs are
hit a few more times and then the plant knows
I've got a juicy live meal, and so it's gonna
close up all the way. It's gonna seel like a
(12:37):
ziploc bag. It's gonna fill up with its digestive juices,
which are a little bit of cidic, and there's enzymes
that are gonna break down all the soft parts of
that bug of you.
Speaker 1 (12:46):
Okay, all right, I'm breaking down.
Speaker 5 (12:47):
Breaking down. It's gonna look like a lima bean for
about a week or so, depending on how big you are.
Ok And then it's gonna suck up all those juices
and now it's got all your soft art, it's liquefied,
and then it's going to reopen and what you're gonna
see is the exoskeleton, just your bones, and it's gonna
wait for the rain or the wind to kind of
(13:08):
wash that away. So what's really cool about this is
it takes a lot of energy for a plant to
move right, Okay and fast?
Speaker 4 (13:17):
Yeah, And it's the trigger hair, right, So I'm thinking
like if a leaf or something, yes, yes.
Speaker 5 (13:22):
So you know in a rain storm, oh yeah, you know,
a couple droplets could get this to close. But it's
not gonna seal and fill up with fluid because there's
nothing alive moving around in there. So it has a
couple of fail safes to make sure it doesn't waste
any of that energy because each trap can only close
about six times, let's say, and then it's used up
(13:43):
all its energy and traps will die, and if you
you look at the one on the table, you'll see
some of the traps are browning out. So that one's done,
it's spent all its energy. So when we buy one
and it's got two or three traps on it and
you go home, you play with it and it closes,
it can only close about five or six times and
then it's done. So it's always producing more and more traps.
(14:04):
So what it does is remember how I said two
trigger hairs got hit and it closed almost all the way.
It stays like that for twenty four hours before it reopens.
It's not gonna let something mess with it and waste
of it. So it's like I said, they're reopen and
the close boom, boom boom, So it waits till tomorrow.
Darwin has said that this is the smartest plant on
(14:24):
planet Earth. It can count to ten, and it can
tell time, and it's pretty accurate on the ten second
rule and the twenty four hour They've done studies.
Speaker 4 (14:34):
And dude, we're just talking about one so far, right,
the first one and the mechanism, right, I'm looking at
the others, and you mentioned this is one specifically in
the United States.
Speaker 2 (14:43):
But we've talked about these affo A. I was gonna say,
there's a couple others.
Speaker 4 (14:46):
Right, one is my favorite, the sundew, But yeah, there's
two others we can talk about, right, the American picture
in the sun.
Speaker 2 (14:51):
Do can you describe to us the difference in what
they do?
Speaker 5 (14:54):
Yeah, So we have another picture plant. It's the North
American picture plant. Those guys are found from Florida all
the way up the eastern seaboard almost into Annada. Yeah, exactly,
and the varieties change. These are vase like shaped leaves
and again it's the trap is the modified leaf. Everything
(15:15):
from two inches tall to three feet tall. These pictures
feet and it's like a big two it's like an
open face shapes. Some of them have lids. The lids
don't close, but it helps keep the rain water from
filling up the vase where it would fall over and
not be successful and trapping. We have some on the
(15:35):
West coast. It's called the Darlingtonia that's found northern California
and up in those parts.
Speaker 3 (15:41):
One observation I want to make real quick for our
audience too, that I think is fascinating about picture plants
is you said they're the vase shape.
Speaker 1 (15:47):
But to actually look at it and think this is
a leaf.
Speaker 3 (15:50):
And for the most part we think leaves. We think
flat and either grass like like the bamboo leaf, or
broad like a maple leaf, or you know, even pine.
Speaker 1 (16:00):
Trees with their needles. That's a type of leaf. But
to think that this leaf is tubular.
Speaker 3 (16:05):
To a certain extent, and then as you mentioned, some
sort of extra piece it looks like it could be
a lid or a flap. It's really just amazing to
think how these plants came about.
Speaker 1 (16:14):
This is a leaf structure.
Speaker 5 (16:16):
Oh yeah, yeah, And they vary so much. And beautiful colors.
Speaker 2 (16:20):
I say, I fum a fly and I see this
beautiful color? Is it the color I'm enticed at?
Speaker 1 (16:24):
Or what? Also?
Speaker 5 (16:25):
And and bugsy and ultra violet. So some of these
plants are like a glowing me onside dinner. You can
see the one that I have kind of on the
floor there there's a leucidendrin the type, Yeah, exactly. So
these guys are living in the bog along with venus
(16:46):
fly traps and sundews and basically there are passive traps.
So they sit there looking beautiful. Where's flowers involved? It's
been said that some varieties of saracenia, so the North
America pitch plant is called. If the kids want to
look this up, a field of sarasenias would smell like
cat urine, smell like the exactly. So I always tell
(17:08):
the kids it's not always the good smells. The bus in. Yeah,
so there's the odor that goes with them. They also
have a nectar gland underneath their lid that the bugs
are interested in. Some of the varieties have a little
powder along the lip, and the lip is very slippery.
So between that and all the flowers and smells, the
bugs are drawn in. They see that neon sign, and
(17:30):
a bug, you know, is after that nectar gland lands
on the lip, and the powder that's on there is
almost like a neurotoxin makes them a little woozy, and
it's very slippery, like we said, and they fall in. Now,
the first third of that picture is very slippery shingles
like you'd find on your roof overlapping. Yeah, and so
as the bug is trying to crawl out, those are
(17:51):
kind of like just the roof is falling in on them. Yeah,
So they fall a little further and then they're going
to encounter these downward fears hairs that keep them from
being able to crawl back out, and they just sit
there until they die and then the next bug lands
on top of them.
Speaker 2 (18:08):
What a beautiful story. It's like the ultimate slip inside.
Speaker 5 (18:15):
And they slowly decompose and break down. And you've seen
we've dissected these before and so if you open one up,
they can just be riddled with bugs. And so these
guys go dormant in the winter. So in the winter
you're going to see these tiny, little, very flat leaf
looking things that were popping out of the ground. And
then they wake up in the spring and they throw
(18:36):
the flower. That is amazing. Their flowers are so crazy.
It looks like an upside down umbrella. But what's great
about is is it has such a small window for pollinating.
It doesn't want to trap the bees that it needs
for parping. So here it is it's late winter, early spring,
(18:56):
it wakes up, it throws its flowers, and it lets
these jump into these upside down umbrellas. So if the
pollen falls, it falls into the umbrella and they roll
around in it and they jump around and it makes
the pollination process really efficient. Yeah, okay, and then the
flowers basically after they've been pollinated, they lift upright and
they drop their seats around and they go away. And
(19:18):
then this produces pictures, and so I would say by
late March or starting to see varieties of the picture.
And then it traps bugs those bees. It doesn't care.
It eats bees all year long except for during pollination.
Speaker 3 (19:32):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (19:32):
I can just see the story that one beingamed Bill.
Speaker 4 (19:34):
Hey, Tad, do you remember that delicious little flower? Let's
go check it out.
Speaker 3 (19:37):
Late you had mentioned with the venus fly trap that
there's some enzymes on liquid that goes in once they
have sealed up around their prey. Is there anything at
the bottom of the picture plant?
Speaker 5 (19:47):
Okay, yes, And that's the difference between these guys in
the tropical There is fluid in the bottom of these
guys in the American a ton though. I open them up,
you'll get a huge oplets that you But it is
damp and moist in there, and these bugs are basically
breaking down and it just all funnels down. Like I said,
(20:08):
it's very shaped, so all the nutrients just work their
way down.
Speaker 1 (20:11):
And the plants just sucks that back.
Speaker 5 (20:12):
And this guy is going to trap from late March
all the way until about November and maybe in December,
and we usually cut them down at Super Bowl. That's
my marker for Super Bowl happens. I go and cut
all the pictures down because here in San Diego we
don't have much of a winter, so I have to
fake it. And so by that I just cut everything down.
Speaker 2 (20:35):
I mean it makes sense, right, species specific nuances.
Speaker 5 (20:38):
And then we open up the pictures for summer camps
and we dissect them and see what kind of bugs
we got in.
Speaker 3 (20:43):
Okay, so we've got flight frap. We got the picture
plants next one of the center of the table. This
is my favorite, Marco's favorite, and my daughter's favorite.
Speaker 1 (20:50):
Yes, the beautiful sun dew.
Speaker 3 (20:51):
Can you just describe it to those who don't know
what a sundew looks like?
Speaker 5 (20:55):
So a sundew, how do you describe these tendrils?
Speaker 1 (20:59):
Right?
Speaker 5 (20:59):
Yeah, yeah, long little tendrils that glisten in the sun
like and if you hold it up to the light,
you just it's beaming. It looks sweet, It looks like
something you would want to taste if you were a bug.
They have beautiful flowers and they have probably the worst.
Speaker 2 (21:21):
A nice hug of death.
Speaker 3 (21:22):
You can.
Speaker 1 (21:24):
Sound as nice as you watch.
Speaker 5 (21:25):
It's a horrible way to go. So these plants are
very sticky, and that glistening dew is basically inadhesive. And
so again I relate.
Speaker 1 (21:40):
I see it.
Speaker 2 (21:40):
It's so sparkly, I see the light. You says, I'm
gonna fly towards it. So I just landed. It's so sticky.
What's what's going on now?
Speaker 5 (21:49):
So it's that glistening dew, like we said, is an adhesive, okay.
And if you were to blow your nose into your
hands okay, and you were to rub your fingers in it,
that's about how sticky this guy is. So you're not
it's not super glue. You're not stuck there for the
rest of your life. But if you're a bug, stuck
(22:11):
on that right, But it's just sticky enough to get
on your wings and to clog your breathing ducks. And
so this plant is touched sensitive, and as soon as
a bug lands on it, it knows it, it feels it.
If you look really close, there's tiny little hairs and
those hairs are going to slowly start to lay down
on the bug. And as the bug fights. The more
(22:33):
the more mucous, the secrete like a spider web. Almost
stick here, stick here. So I brought this guy in.
This is philiformous and it is riddled with bugs. If
you guys take a close look, and there's a moth.
We did a talk with summer camp kids last week
and I had a couple of bees that were stucking
(22:53):
and for the kids to actually see the bees were
still still fighting a little bit. There are versions of
it where the will slowly start to curl over a bug,
and if the kids look those up on YouTube, there's
great sundew videos. The botanical name is dross and they
come in all different shapes and sizes. They are found
on every content except for antartic. Every content, and we
(23:16):
always joke they are the weed of the carnivorous family.
They pop up in everything.
Speaker 3 (23:22):
I was going to say, it looks like there's some.
Speaker 5 (23:25):
Some in there we don't that just is on its own.
That's some of the ones that we do at our
plant sale. This is a really easy one to grow.
So you put it in a little dish and to
still water. Stick it in your kitchen window. No more
gnats and more fruits, hopefully, you don't have too many mosquitoes.
And then as soon as you don't see any more bugs,
(23:46):
you go ahead and put it outside in the full
sun and you just never let it dry out. Remember
these coming from bogs or swamps, and they want to
stay wet. So as long as you have a little
bit of water in a small little tray and you
just keep it wet that way, you're going to be
gone for a few weeks. Just put it in a
deeper tray.
Speaker 3 (24:03):
Yeah, just.
Speaker 4 (24:07):
So many different mechanisms for hunting, right, I mean, we
got to be in this fly trap, the mouth clamping,
those jaws.
Speaker 5 (24:17):
It's a crazy type of hunting because you want what
I've got, you know what I mean, I don't have
to go find you. You come to me. When we
do our plant talks third Friday, all of a sudden,
you notice there's just bugs are everywhere. Like I bring
the plants out on the table, and over the course
the next few hours, the bugs showing.
Speaker 1 (24:35):
Plants are soliciting that attention.
Speaker 4 (24:38):
There's another one I wanted to highlight really quick because
we talked about the picture plants, right, But there's asiatic species,
right that have a different variation or they're a little
higher up, but still the same idea.
Speaker 5 (24:48):
It's a different species. They're called the penthees pentes, yes,
and so it's a tropical picture plant. These guys are
more epiphytic, so.
Speaker 1 (24:58):
It's not an animal, I don't know.
Speaker 5 (25:00):
Yeah, so these guys more live up in the crotches
of trees. Oh faces on the side that are terrestrial,
which means they live in the soil. So these guys
don't have as much soil around their roots, and they
will kind of cling to a tree and you can
see some of the ones I brought. You can see
how they would out yea and they.
Speaker 1 (25:21):
Would just edge of the table even.
Speaker 4 (25:24):
Yeah, we have a good display over a tiger trail, correct,
Like there's a new habitat there, so you're staring at
a really cool orange or black predator. But then if
you turn around and you get to see a different
predator out there.
Speaker 5 (25:34):
So they have very niche climate zones that they come from.
And so we have a whole bunch over by the
Pollinator Garden. But we have some few very rare species
that we were lucky enough to get donated to us
in the last couple of years because our program has
been doing so well, and those plants needed a lot
more heat and a lot more humidity and so over
(25:55):
by tigers. Yeah, we took over this nice little display
and Rich takes care of our collection. Rich Riley, he's
doing an amazing job. He set that all up and
it's great. So another little spot of just horticulture over there. Yeah,
a little gym.
Speaker 2 (26:11):
Tell me if I'm wrong, friend.
Speaker 4 (26:12):
But some of these species, the picture plant in particular,
that instead of like trying to lure insects in and
processing that with the en zemes and whatnot, there are
some that are actually trying to encourage certain bat species
and frogs right to sleep into the picture because you know,
they eat something and something comes out right.
Speaker 5 (26:29):
And there's lots of insects and animals that have some
type of symbiotic relationship where they they help each other
out basically. So going back to the nepenthes, because he
has a couple cool stories, but there's other ones that
they do across the board. So just like the American
picture plant, right, we have these amazing pictures that are
(26:50):
the modified leaves and they come in beautiful shapes, beautiful
look at what I see. I wish our guests could see.
Speaker 1 (27:00):
Gotta come to we're seeing.
Speaker 5 (27:01):
They come in all shapes and sizes, all different colors,
from pictures that are just a couple inches tall to
about the size of a two liter bottle. And so
spiders love to lay a little web across the opening,
maybe catch something that.
Speaker 1 (27:18):
That might go in.
Speaker 5 (27:18):
Spiders also drop a line go down there, steal side
the back. These pictures actually have more of a reservoir
of fluid, digestive fluid at the bottom of and before
I said, if we opened one up, you get a
few droplets. It's very moist in there. These guys actually
if you poured it into your hand, you'd have several
ounces of fluid in there. And so again it's acidic.
(27:41):
There's enzymes, there's bacteria that live in there and help
break down the bugs that fall in. They work the
same way. They've got that nectar gland. There is a
tree shrew in Borneo that loves to sit on the
lip of the picture. He licks the nectar gland. It
upsets his tummy. He goes to the bathroom in the picture.
Breakfast helps fertilize, so that actually benefits the plant. Yeah right, yeah,
(28:05):
And then they're like you're saying, they're been known to
have bats, yeahs from there. Yeah, I haven't heard that one,
but I'm sure.
Speaker 2 (28:13):
It's wild, right, Yeah.
Speaker 5 (28:15):
Yeah, there are moss that roosts in there, and then
there's you know, little frogs and lizards that go in
there thinking that they want to get some of that
soup and then find that they can't get out. And
so I've even found lizards in some of our pictures
over the years.
Speaker 4 (28:29):
Yeah, yeah, folks, I mean you hear it right, not
just great whites.
Speaker 2 (28:32):
Not just lions tying carnivorous plants.
Speaker 3 (28:36):
We're getting ready to wrap up here, but I want
to just point out so our audience, if you don't
get a chance to look somebody's up online the first
set of North American picture plants. This is like a
vase sitting on the ground, a cluster of vases sitting
on the ground open up.
Speaker 1 (28:47):
Whereas more of the asiatic species.
Speaker 3 (28:49):
They remind me almost of a spider plant in that
not the leaf structure necessarily, but you have these strands
or shoots that come off and the pictures hanging down
below that. So you'd mentioned they're up in trees around
rock out croppings. So these things are hanging down low.
They're really trying to cover as much space as possible
to get out.
Speaker 5 (29:04):
There have a very orchid kind of low and I
brought one that is kind of cool. It's a species
that there's only a few in the world and we've
got one. And it is a carnivorous vermeiliad. It's in
the pineapple family and it does but its pineapple family, well,
(29:25):
pineapples are in the vermilion.
Speaker 1 (29:26):
I learned something.
Speaker 5 (29:28):
And if you guys know vermilions, they have a shape
where they collect water themselves, and this one collects water
and leaf material and some bugs and it breaks it
down and I have that on the chair over there.
So that was a cool one.
Speaker 3 (29:42):
Well, there's one other one you brought into that you
said is similar to a related.
Speaker 5 (29:46):
To in its own family. Don't works like the sundew
that it's a sticky trap and it's a pinglaris and
we call them pings and they live in rocks in
these little spots, but all the surfaces of of them
are sticky, not super sticky, just a little bit sticky.
We call them the velcrow plant. And so a little
(30:06):
net lands on it and can't move, and it just
dissolves the net where it stands.
Speaker 1 (30:11):
Here's what I want to audience to know. He's bringing
in all these these picture.
Speaker 3 (30:14):
Plants and the sundewes and the venus fly taps, and
these are all like, yeah, these are clearly there's traps,
so there's a way for a bug to get eaten.
Speaker 1 (30:21):
He brings us when it and there's like three little
not much.
Speaker 3 (30:24):
Bigger than a small rose as far as diameter, and they're.
Speaker 1 (30:28):
Flat to the rock. They look just like little flat petals.
Oh it's pretty. But I'm like, I thought it was
a succulent when I walked in there.
Speaker 3 (30:35):
Maybe maybe it grows something later bugs And he's like, no,
it's like a velcrow plant.
Speaker 1 (30:40):
Never heard of that. It's so cool.
Speaker 3 (30:42):
Again, the diversity within the carnivorous plants.
Speaker 1 (30:45):
I think we all initially think venus fly.
Speaker 3 (30:47):
Fap, but they get all the other diversity of how
plants have figured out to find nutrients and spaces that
otherwise not dense with nutrients for them.
Speaker 5 (30:55):
There is carnivorous moss and they actually carnivorous moss. Yeah,
and it eats them tooads that are in the soil
so they're eating stuff below the surface of the soil.
There is one called a bladderword that lives in the water,
and this is a cool one if kids ever want
to look up a Yeah. So it is basically almost
like a penthes in shape and it has little trigger
(31:19):
hairs like a venus fly trap, and a little little
bug underwater bug hits that hair and it works like
a vacuum. It just opens up about and sucks it in.
Speaker 2 (31:28):
It's like a plant a lot, right.
Speaker 5 (31:32):
We just haven't had a way where we can incorporate
them into our collection. We would need some fish tanks,
yeah tell me, but yeah, and then you know, there's
other plants that we don't even think of. Are you
guys familiar with the birdcatcher plant? The personia? So we
have them throughout the zoo. A beautiful foliage. It's kind
of a white and clearly aviary though, and when they flower,
(31:55):
we try to collect the flowers because we don't want
any of our native birds. But it's crazy about it
is a very sticky, sticky flower, and our bird keepers
love our birds so much that throw like at and
get those flowers out of it. But it's not so
much that a bird sticks to the flower as What
happens is these flowers drop and they line the jungle
bed with this very sticky material. A baby bird falls
(32:18):
out of its nest lands in there and gets this
all over him and basically dies. But guess we die
at the base of base of the plant and decomposes.
So this plant plant birds, it's breaking down and it's
going into the soil and it's fertilizing.
Speaker 2 (32:34):
I've never heard of this one before.
Speaker 5 (32:36):
That's incredible. We don't consider it necessarily your traditional carnivor, but.
Speaker 1 (32:42):
That work. Yeah, exactly whoa I know?
Speaker 2 (32:48):
Can we do another episode? So much?
Speaker 5 (32:50):
I know?
Speaker 2 (32:51):
And oh there's so much to talk about you.
Speaker 5 (32:53):
Yes, I mean, I'm a horticulturist. I've been working with
plants since I was eighteen years old. But I am
so lucky that I get to work here, you know
what I mean, Like I could be I could be
your gardener, mowing and your lawn. But I'm lucky enough
that I get to work with some of the most
amazing plants in the world and some of the most
amazing people. And I get to talk to you guys. Sweet.
Speaker 1 (33:18):
Yeah, I know, this is great, Adam.
Speaker 3 (33:19):
I think seriously, might have to revisit place yeah next
season or something.
Speaker 2 (33:24):
But this episode maybe too.
Speaker 1 (33:26):
This has been so much information. Thank you so much,
appreciate your time.
Speaker 5 (33:30):
Yeah, you can come visit me on third Friday of
the month. You got to see what was on the table?
Speaker 2 (33:36):
Yeah, absolutely, yes, thanks again, thank.
Speaker 1 (33:39):
You, Marco.
Speaker 3 (33:41):
We absolutely must go back and talk to Adam next season.
That was fascinating.
Speaker 2 (33:46):
I know what you mean.
Speaker 4 (33:48):
I mean, I thought I already knew a lot about
carnivorous plants, but now I feel like I have so
much more to learn. Like you know, I had no
idea there was a plant out there that can actually
trap the words so they could tea at the base
of the plant and become fertilizer.
Speaker 2 (34:03):
Are you kidding me?
Speaker 1 (34:03):
Seriously? Mind blowing?
Speaker 3 (34:05):
And what about the bladder work these little underwater carnivorous plants.
I mean always thot carnivorous plants eight you know, flying
or terrestrial insects of some sort. I had no idea
there are aquatic ones that eight little underwater critters too.
Speaker 4 (34:17):
Okay, Okay, I know we're having fun geeking out about this.
Speaker 1 (34:21):
This is the last one, I promise, I can.
Speaker 4 (34:22):
Promise the fact that the venus flytrap is so precise
with its timing and can actually tell the difference between
say a rain drop or a leaf falling into it
versus an insect.
Speaker 3 (34:33):
Yeah, I know, I mean plants technically don't have a
brain and nervous system like animals. But the venus fly
trap does make me wonder if we haven't maybe given
plants enough credit when it comes to the whole brains
department hundred percent.
Speaker 4 (34:45):
And it's funny, you know, I was just thinking out
hard of culture and taking care of all these diverse
plants is as unique as all the different mammal, bird,
and reptile care specialists. You know, there were so many
nuances and specialties within each animal group. It feels like
it's the same way for these amazing plants too.
Speaker 1 (35:03):
Oh, I know exactly what you mean, Marco.
Speaker 3 (35:04):
There are so many different things people do when it
comes to plant and wildlifecare. For example, did you know
there are wildlifecare specialists that work night shifts?
Speaker 2 (35:11):
You know what? I didn't know that.
Speaker 4 (35:13):
Of course, although most people might think it's just to
take care of nocturnal animals, there's actually a lot more
to it than that.
Speaker 1 (35:19):
Wait, a minute.
Speaker 3 (35:20):
Are you saying there's a topic about wildlife care that
is unique and most people don't know about it.
Speaker 4 (35:26):
I am sir, and I bet our audience would enjoy
learning more about it.
Speaker 1 (35:30):
Well, there it is.
Speaker 3 (35:31):
Be sure to subscribe and tune into our next episode,
in which we learn more about the nocturnal behavior of
the nighttime Wildlifecare specialist team.
Speaker 1 (35:42):
I'm Marco Went and I'm Richwartz. Thanks for listening.
Speaker 3 (35:50):
For more information about the San Diego Zoo and San
Diego Zoo Safari Park, go to SDZWA dot org. Amazing
Wildlife is a production of iHeartRadio. Our supervising producers are
Nikkia Swinton and Dylan Fagan, and our sound designers are
Sierra Spreen and Matt Russell. For more shows from iHeartRadio,
check out the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you
(36:11):
listen to your favorite shows.
Hosts And Creators
Rick Schwartz
Marco Wendt
Popular Podcasts
The Breakfast Club
The World's Most Dangerous Morning Show, The Breakfast Club, With DJ Envy And Charlamagne Tha God!
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
Decisions, Decisions
Welcome to "Decisions, Decisions," the podcast where boundaries are pushed, and conversations get candid! Join your favorite hosts, Mandii B and WeezyWTF, as they dive deep into the world of non-traditional relationships and explore the often-taboo topics surrounding dating, sex, and love. Every Monday, Mandii and Weezy invite you to unlearn the outdated narratives dictated by traditional patriarchal norms. With a blend of humor, vulnerability, and authenticity, they share their personal journeys navigating their 30s, tackling the complexities of modern relationships, and engaging in thought-provoking discussions that challenge societal expectations. From groundbreaking interviews with diverse guests to relatable stories that resonate with your experiences, "Decisions, Decisions" is your go-to source for open dialogue about what it truly means to love and connect in today's world. Get ready to reshape your understanding of relationships and embrace the freedom of authentic connections—tune in and join the conversation!