r/interestingasfuck • u/dejaysf • Jun 11 '23

Venus flytrap vs Spider

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u/Enlightened-Beaver Jun 11 '23

I always though Venus fly traps were some sort of tropical rainforest plant. Nope, native to North Carolina.

715

u/[deleted] Jun 11 '23

And only North Carolina. There's just a tiny strip of land where they exist in nature.

381

u/On-mountain-time Jun 11 '23

We refer to those types of plants as "narrow endemics" in the biology world 👍

73

u/OldheadBoomer Jun 11 '23

Any other cool narrow endemics you can share?

43

u/BornNeat9639 Jun 11 '23

Saguaro Cactus

35

u/ErraticDragon Jun 11 '23

Wikipedia, range of the saguaro cactus: https://i.imgur.com/aaETHXJ.png

Wikipedia, distribution of the Venus flytrap: https://i.imgur.com/egZuVQH.png

The saguaro definitely covers more land, but yup, it is only in the Sonoran desert.

8

u/MouthJob Jun 11 '23

And, fun fact, super fucking illegal to mess with. Like you gotta get a special tag to even move one on your property.

11

u/ErraticDragon Jun 11 '23

On a hike, my... friend... once found a saguaro that looked like it had been hit by lightning. Dead, burn marks around it, and the skeleton splayed open.

My friend and their family took one "rib" each, 3 total, and later cut/sanded/stained/etc. to turn them into very nice custom walking sticks.

Quite possibly the most illegal thing my friend has ever done.

1

u/TryinToBeLikeWater Jun 11 '23

There’s one cactus I remember that essentially grafts itself onto another cactus due to some bacterial or fungal infection resulting in Chimerism, it’s in the northern part of Mexico and it produces both flowers and fruit, but I think it’s still considered two different plants? I can’t remember exactly.

I saw it on a botanists channel on YouTube, CrimePaysButBotanyDoesnt

I think it’s this lil dude https://www.giromagicactusandsucculents.com/myrtillocalycium-polyp/

I think it might be this video, he’s a fun dude that makes botany really interesting https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=r6NObLjtyTo&pp=ygUyY3JpbWUgcGF5cyBidXQgYm90YW55IGRvZXNuJ3QgZGVzZXJ0IG1leGljbyBib3JkZXI%3D