Potatoes, Tomatoes Not Vegan-Friendly

In what is probably the best-titled article to ever be published in the Botanical Journal of he Linnean Society, British scientists have announced that there are approximately 50% more meat-eating plants in the world than we originally thought.

In the article, "Murderous plants: Victorian Gothic, Darwin and modern insights into vegetable carnivory", it is explained that there are TWO types of carnivorous behavior in the plant kingdom.

The first, "active carnivory" is what we traditionally think of when we consider meat-eating plants. A plant that traps, kills, and eats its prey (like a Venus Flytrap) is an active carnivore. Flies are attracted to the leaves of the plant, which then snap open and closed to trap it before it releases digestive enzymes to kill the fly and use the nutrients to grow.

The second type, a "passive carnivory", still contains the three elements (attract, trap, eat) but does not produce digestive enzymes. A passively carnivorous plant will attract an insect in the usual ways, then trap it using any number of means (from tiny, sticky hairs to a pitcher trap), the bug will die of natural causes (starvation, drowning, respectively) and outside forces like bacteria, fungi, etc. will break down the carcass into nutrients for the plant to absorb through its roots. Essentially, these guys are making their own fertilizer.

These newly crowned carnivores aren't the exotic, remote freaks of nature you're used to, either. They live and eat in YOUR OWN BACKYARD. The article reveals that tomatoes, bromeliads, potatoes, tobacco and even the seemingly innocent petunia are actually slow, methodical killers.

In a classic example of British understatement, the researchers say that "We are accustomed to think of plants as being immobile and harmless, and there is something deeply unnerving about the thought of carnivorous plants".