The living toilet

            They’re like toilets on a stick for three shrews. Meet Nepenthes lowii, the world’s only known plant that actively collects and consumes poop. A pitcher plant found only on mountain peaks in Borneo. Lowii begins life as normal meat-eating vine, producing ground-level pitchers that trap and digest ants and other arthropods. But after maturing and snaking up atree or shrub, it develops a taste for faeces and grows a new type of trap that looks - and functions – a lot like a toilet. Funnel-shaped with a permanently open lid that is slathered in battery nectar, the pitcher attracts a regular patron with a serious sweet tooth – the mountain three shrews Tupaia Montana. The funnel itself is wide and shallow, about the size of a person’s palm – an ideal place for shrew to squat while dining. The pitcher, its customer’s back end positioned directly above its mouth, catches any droppings.

The rather clever adaptation earns the plant a continuous and abundant supply of nourishment in a nutrient – poor habitat. Biologist estimate that 57 to 100 percent of the plant’s nitrogen intake is from shrew poop. But it’s a two-way street, because the plant produces copious amounts of easy-to-access sap – more than any other species in its range. Moreover, the shrew cannot digest fibre – it simply chews the flesh of fruits to extract the juices. Lowii pitchers fill syrup all that much more important. Overall, it’s a win-win situation for both plant and animal, an equal exchange of scarce and important nutrients.