Researchers conducting a botanical study to mark the 200th birthday of naturalist and carnivorous plant aficionado Charles Darwin have learned that tomatoes share the eating habits of such predatory species as Venus Flytraps and pitcher plants.
The discovery, reported in the U.K.’s Independent, shows just how little we really know about the natural world.
Far from the slavering montrosities seen in the 1978 cult classic Attack of the Killer Tomatoes, some species of tomato, potato and tobacco plants have sticky hairs that trap aphids and other small invertebrates, which then decay and leave nutrients that feed the roots.
