The Food Chain

In the mighty jungle, you don’t eat plants. They eat you.

What. The. Heck. I know we’ve always oohed and aahed over Venus Fly Traps that snap up those pesky, well, flies, but this is something else. These are some seriously carnivorous plants. Instead of the relatively friendly—i.e. small—Venus trappers, these guys are huge. They pack some serious volume.

This guy, for example, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nepenthes, is like a freaking black hole. Just looking at this 3 foot monstrosity makes me feel like I’m gonna die. It LOOKS like it’s just waiting to eat you. Hell, it even has teeth.

And then I found that even the friendly Venus Fly Trap is, well, vicious. These guys, http://www.sarracenia.com/faq/faq2130.html, apparently aren’t single entities. They grow as colonies of voracious chomping machines. Good thing they only evolved to eat bugs. I would hate to get targeted by one of those.

Even scarier, it seems these creatures—for surely something so sinister could not be mere plants—are almost sentient. They have crazy, devious strategies to lure prey into their maws. This marine monster, http://www.sarracenia.com/faq/faq5320.html, lures crustaceans into their disorienting tentacles and BAM—bye bye blue crab. Imagine, strolling alone on your ocean floor, when you wander into this forest of waving thingies—not so bad. Then the next thing you know, you’re lost and getting your guts sucked out.

But the MOST MOST MOST scary of all are these guys: http://www.sarracenia.com/faq/faq5400.html Potentially having vines up to TEN FREAKING METERS long, they look like alien creatures coming to dominate the world and eat us all. Imagine stumbling into one of these guys—you’d have no chance. Before you could say “Devil’s Snare,” you’d be wrapped and gobbled and digested.

Not only are you dead, you died from getting eaten by a freaking plant. Oh the ignominy. Oh the horror. When I go house hunting, I will follow this checklist:
1) Look for potential plant entrances where large toothy vines can sneak in. Block it off and/or plant a fire trap.
2) Look in the attic for Jumanji, and promptly nuke the board to avoid ever having a creepy magical jungle infestation.
3) Block the fireplace for good measure.

When you sleep tonight, watch your backs: your ferns may be more than they seem.