according to research.
What we have suspected for a long time now, tomatoes and other plants are carnivorous predators who kill insects in order to feed themselves.
The research shows that they capture and kill small insects with their sticky little hairs on their stems and then absorb nutrients through their roots when the animals decay and fall to the ground.
At first it was thought that the murderous act was developed where the soil was poor quality, but even the home grown garden varieties have this ability, and they use it.
The unusual suspects include, tomatoes, petunias, ornamental tobacco plants, some varieties of potatoes and shepherd’s purse, a relative of cabbages. Researchers at Royal Botanical Gardens Kew, which carried out the study, now believe there are hundreds more killer plants than previously realized.
Professor Mark Chase, of Kew and Queen Mary, University of London, said: “The cultivated tomatoes and potatoes still have the hairs. Tomatoes in particular are covered with these sticky hairs. They do trap small insects on a regular basis. They do kill insects."
“We suspect in the domesticated varieties they are getting plenty of food through the roots from us so don’t get much benefit from trapping insects.
Let's face it, they like to eat meat, like most of us do!
The researchers, publishing their finding in the ‘Botanical Journal of the Linnean Society’, said: “We may be surrounded by many more murderous plants than we think.
“We are accustomed to think of plants as being immobile and harmless, and there is something deeply unnerving about the thought of carnivorous plants," they added.
Okay vegetarians, now what?
