By Meghan Rosen
Biologist Martin Dančák didn’t set out to find a plant species new to science. But on a hike through a rainforest in Borneo, he and colleagues stumbled on a subterranean surprise.
Hidden beneath the soil and inside dark, mossy pockets below tree roots, carnivorous pitcher plants dangled their deathtraps underground. The pitchers can look like hollow eggplants and probably lure unsuspecting prey into their sewer hole-like traps. Once an ant or a beetle steps in, the insect falls to its death, drowning in a stew of digestive juices (SN: 11/22/16). Until now, scientists had never observed pitcher plants with traps almost exclusively entombed in earth.