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I think the Sarlacc from "Star Wars" is the most fearsome creature ever imagined

  • #21
McPherson says:
While at university, I took part in several rainforest conservation programmes in countries across Central America and Southeast Asia. One of these projects involved an eight week stay in the Maliau Basin in Sarawak, Malaysian Borneo, and this experience gave me the opportunity to observe Nepenthes in the wild for the first time. To my amazement, in the very first pitcher of a N. hirsuta plant which I examined, I found the body of a dead mouse, and from this experience, my fascination with carnivorous plants was fixed.

Also, in Pitcher Plants of the Old World, he says "very occasionally, Nepenthes also trap larger prey including vertebrates as large as rats and small birds."
 
  • #22
I dont see any possible way a mouse could drown in a nepenthes pitcher..
its not big enough, there isnt enough water, and the sides of the pitcher offer zero resistance to rodent claws..

Scot

a person can drown in an inch of water.....all it takes is inhaling a single full breath full of water and your pretty well screwed......aint hard to drown....like i said i dont believe it happens everytime one falls in the pitcher but it does happen....
 
  • #23
Mice can swim but the hygroscopicity of water vs Nepenthes pitcher fluids are vastly different. Plus it looks to me like the camera was fixed rather than held. I totally buy it, it's been found in the wild so why not in cultivation?
 
  • #24
Just my two cents:

Mouse teeth are very sharp and long, but held at a certain angle. The wall of a Nepenthes is curved in a way to make it hard to bite anywhere. Try biting a balloon, and see how far you can go.

The mouse would also have nothing to hang onto to get enough leverage to bite or claw it's way out.
 
  • #25
Well, it was real hard to get a balloon over my head, but I did it, and yes, I have to say, it is near impossible to bite the LOL inside wall of the balloon ;)

haha, i kid.

and that clip, it's a setup, come on! do you really think 1. someone just happens to have a mouse in their house, 2. the mouse just so happens to find itself(without intervention) hanging perilously above a pitcher, 3. how many times have you witnesses a vft actually catch its prey while you are present, chances this guy and mouse being in the right place at the right time are 1 in a million...

don't believe everything you see on tv/internet... however i do believe that it wasn't able to get out, and that the second clip shows what happens to a mouse in a nep pitcher, that's fact. LOL i wonder if PETA ever got word of this clip, hahahaha.

great find though wolfn!
 
  • #26
The science still doesn't make sense to me. Why would you want to keep your victim alive for a thousand years? There is such a thing as the economics of carnivory. If you're going to keep your victim alive for that long, the economics of keeping that being alive for that long hardly makes any sense. Think of all the tissue necessary to hold a struggling victim, the chemicals to preserve and keep them alive, the enzymes to slowly digest them... It's more like the creation of someone with too many S&M dreams rather than a scientifically feasible creature. And the worst part... No cable TV in there. I feel for you, Bobba Fet.
 
  • #27
The science still doesn't make sense to me. Why would you want to keep your victim alive for a thousand years? There is such a thing as the economics of carnivory. If you're going to keep your victim alive for that long, the economics of keeping that being alive for that long hardly makes any sense. Think of all the tissue necessary to hold a struggling victim, the chemicals to preserve and keep them alive, the enzymes to slowly digest them... It's more like the creation of someone with too many S&M dreams rather than a scientifically feasible creature. And the worst part... No cable TV in there. I feel for you, Bobba Fet.

+1

That's exactly what I was thinking. What would be the nutritional benefit of slowly eating a victim over a span of a thousand years? I could see maybe a month or two... but 1000 years? It would be eating a microscopic bite each day.
 
  • #28
But Boba Fett makes it out! ;)
 
  • #29
Keep in mind it is fantasy it doesn't have to make sense, infact if anything gets too similar to real life a lot of people get all poo-poo about it (District 9). LOL
 
  • #31
right click on the picture you want to post from a website (not on your own personal PC), then choose "properties" from the drop down menu which appears, using your mouse select all of the text on the line called Location and hit the keys CTRL and C at the same time (this copies the location). Then click the icon here at the Terraforums called "insert image" above the message post text box, it will say "please enter the URL of your image" just click your mouse in the URL box and hit the buttons CTRL and V. This will paste the location of the image in the box. Hit "OK" and the image should pop up in your post.
 
  • #32
right click on the picture you want to post from a website (not on your own personal PC), then choose "properties" from the drop down menu which appears, using your mouse select all of the text on the line called Location and hit the keys CTRL and C at the same time (this copies the location). Then click the icon here at the Terraforums called "insert image" above the message post text box, it will say "please enter the URL of your image" just click your mouse in the URL box and hit the buttons CTRL and V. This will paste the location of the image in the box. Hit "OK" and the image should pop up in your post.

you shouldnt do it that way..because that is hotlinking and is morally wrong.
you should just provide the link only, if its not your photo.

Right click on the picture you want to post from a website (not on your own personal PC), then choose "properties" from the drop down menu which appears, using your mouse select all of the text on the line called Location and hit the keys CTRL and C at the same time (this copies the location). then go to your message and hit CTRL and P at the same time, this pastes the URL into your message, people can then click the link to see the photo.

Scot
 
  • #33
Morally wrong, inquisitor? The Omnissiah will strike me down for posting a picture of cactus jelly? :D
 
  • #34
As per forum rules:

• Do not post any copyrighted photos/material (anything that is not yours) if you do not have permission/and or credit from the owner. If you use someone else’s image (with permission) as an avatar, please resize it to fit our specs. If you use a copyrighted picture as your custom avatar, get permission from the owner, then go to “edit profile” in your control panel; put the name of the owner and where you got the picture (giving credit to) on "member title" and make sure the image size fits our specs.
 
  • #36
+1

That's exactly what I was thinking. What would be the nutritional benefit of slowly eating a victim over a span of a thousand years? I could see maybe a month or two... but 1000 years? It would be eating a microscopic bite each day.


Apparently, the Sarlacc rarely gets to eat, so it digests it's prey for as long as possible for the nutrients to last. You know?
 
  • #37
I guess if you wish to be puritanical about it likely all but one of us on this very page are breaking the rules with our avatars... and you're not excluded NAN. You see just how insidious this heresy is? :D

As far as someone posting pictures of another persons plant and saying it's theirs - which is what I think this rule is more or less all about, well then that's just sad for whoever is doing that cos when they get found out then it must be embarrassing for them.

Marvin however already said
I cut it out from a paperabout erm..
it was something he'd found in a magazine and was simply asking a question.
 
  • #38
Personally I think the Alien creature designed by HR Geiger is the most fearsome creature.
Coming face-to-face with one of those....
 
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