One of my science scanners picked up this absolutely wonderful article co-authored by Charles Clarke on mutualism between the magnificent Nepenthes rajah and two species of mammals. In summary, a species of tree shrew (Tupaia montana) and rat (Rattus baluensis) both defecate into Nepenthes rajah pitchers while feeding on sugary secretions produced on the underside of the pitcher's lid. This type of behaviour has previously been demonstrated for N. lowii (link one and link two to the original research papers for N. lowii).
The full article (and a .pdf of the research paper) is freely available from this link:
http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0021114
Also be sure to see the high-resolution image of Rattus baluensis feeding on a N. rajah pitcher here (a very high resolution, 9 MB .tiff file is also downloadable from this link).
As if the research article and photograph were not enough, Charles was also good enough to upload three videos of Tupaia montana in action on pitchers of N. rajah and N. macrophylla onto youtube. They are embedded below for your viewing pleasure.
Nepenthes rajah video one:
Nepenthes rajah video two:
Nepenthes macrophylla:
IMPORTANT NOTICE: COPYRIGHT OF THESE VIDEOS REMAINS THAT OF YOTUBE USER clarke2469. THEY ARE REPRODUCED HERE AS ALLOWED BY THE EMBED FUNCTION OFFERED BY YOUTUBE AND BLOGGER AND THE RESPECTIVE EULAs OF BOTH ORGANISATIONS. COPYRIGHT OF ALL ORIGINAL RESEARCH LINKED TO FROM THIS PAGE ALSO REMAINS WITH THE PUBLISHER AND/OR RESPECTIVE AUTHORS. THE OVERALL COPYRIHT DISCLAIMER FOR THIS BLOG THEREFORE DOES NOT APPLY TO THE VIDEOS IN THE BLOG ENTRY BEARING THIS MESSAGE BY ORDER OF BLOG ADMIN.
