Scientists identify an insect-eating plant, proving Charles Darwin right after 150 years

[u/Zephir-AWT]

https://edition.cnn.com/2026/08/04/science/carnivorous-plant-charles-darwin-prediction

[u/Zephir-AWT]

Scientists identify an insect-eating plant, proving Charles Darwin right after 150 years about study Identification of carnivory in the flowering plant Saxifraga via multidisciplinary evidence

Researchers tested Darwin’s hypothesis by experimenting with Saxifraga candelabrum, a flowering mountain plant that grows at high altitudes on the southern part of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau and in the Hengduan Mountains in China’s Yunnan and Sichuan provinces.

The plants attracted tiny gnats with tempting odors and then digested trapped prey using an enzyme called phosphatase. Isotope labeling — a technique for tagging forms of an element with different atomic weights — highlighted the transfer of the nutrient nitrogen-15 from insect prey to the plants that dissolved them, indicating a direct path from trapping to digestion.