DESPITE their name, I think of pitcher plants as carnivorous, flip-top jugs without handles. And I think they?re fascinating because these plants lure insects into examining the inside from the inside and then trap and eat them.

Pitcher plants belong to several different genera, including Nepenthes, and some 16 different Nepenthes pitcher plant species one already named for this country are native to the Philippines.

Reinforcing the nation?s title as the region with the third-largest collection of Nepenthes diversity, British and Filipino researchers have recently identified still another pitcher plant species on a mountaintop in Palawan.

In the February issue of the Botanical Journal of the Linnean Society, researchers from England?s University of Cambridge, Germany?s LMU Munich and the Philippines? Palawan State University reported finding a new species of pitcher plant within a 10-square-kilometer region of Mount Victoria.

This new species has larger pitchers compared to other pitcher plants found in the area, and the pitchers aren?t as rounded, being shaped more like trumpets.

Significance

When it came to naming the new species, it seemed fitting that the name should have significance to both nations represented.

?We have chosen to name this species after the [British] broadcaster and naturalist, Sir David Attenborough, whose astounding television documentaries have made the world?s natural history accessible and understandable to millions,? the researchers wrote in their paper.

?As a keen enthusiast of the genus and a patron of Philippine conservation efforts, it is fitting that this spectacular new species be dedicated to him on the occasion of his 80th birthday.?

While N. attenboroughii was found on Mount Victoria, researchers have also found it in a few areas throughout Palawan.

Based on the number of plants found though, this pitcher plant species is already considered critically endangered in accordance with the World Conservation Union Red List Criteria.

If you?re inclined to be cynical, then you might think that announcing the existence of a newly discovered and threatened species might hasten its extinction as collectors have them removed from the wild.

As a counterweight, consider that in early August, several dozen critically endangered Philippine crocodiles that had been raised in captivity were released into the wilds of the Northern Sierra Madre Natural Park located near the Central Luzon provinces of Aurora and Isabela.

Protected habitat

Since the park is the largest protected habitat in the country and is already home to several other rare and endangered species, among them the Philippine eagle, the Philippine eagle-owl, several turtle species and the dugong, moving the crocodiles here suggests that endangered species aren?t quite ready to disappear yet.

If you?re an optimist, then the discovery of a new plant species confirms a recent report from the World Wildlife Fund?s Nepal office that says more than 350 new species have been discovered in the Eastern Himalayas in the past decade.

Among these discoveries are a bright green frog that ?glides? in the air using its large webbed feet, a tiny deer considered the oldest and smallest deer species, and the first scorpion discovered in Nepal.

I said at the beginning that I think the pitcher plants are cool, but I don?t think they feel the same way. Some years ago I had a nonendangered, Nepenthes-species pitcher plant that I planned to use as a natural pest control.

I thought it would feast on the flies and mosquitoes that liked dining on me, but I think it starved to death instead.

Lesson learned: either place the plant where the insects abound, or else feed the plant much smaller pieces of raw meat.

E-mail the author at massie@massie.com.