In the jungle, you’re never safe… particularly if you’re an insect. One of my favourite things about the rainforest, simply because seeing it in real life fulfils so many of those moments in wildlife documentaries, is the pitcher plants.

These lethal flora are stunning. The pitchers are cups which attract insects which the plants feed on, making them deadly insectivores!

The pitchers are found on the forest floor or dangling at the end of long tendrils. These tendrils run from the tips of leaves of the actual plant, which also uses the tendrils to climb up other forest vegetation, mostly the trunks of trees. So while they parasitise trees to reach the light at canopy level, they’re also dangling tempting, colourfully pigmented cups of nectar for insects to become trapped in.

The rims of these cups are slippery with nectar, causing insects to fall into the pitcher and drown in a liquid contained at the bottom. Some pitcher plants use enzymes to digest the insects they catch, others are home to bacteria, and some even play host to insect larvae, who eat the prey for them and whose excreta the plant feeds on.

These remarkable plants are one of the most fascinating species in the jungle, challenging our ideas of what the word ‘plant’ describes. Nature like this which takes us by surprise is my favourite kind.