It’s the next craze in fiction. Let’s face it, zombies and vampires are so passe. We need something new.
There’s a very cool Discoblog entry that you can use anytime you want to kindle some interest in the weirder examples of biology. This one is from the plant world and is thanks to Jennifer Welsh.
Ultra-rare albino redwood trees completely lack the green pigment chlorophyll, which they need to live (by photosynthesizing nutrients from light). These plants are literally vampires. They are pale (everwhite instead of evergreen), and they survive by sucking the life from other trees.
These vampires remain attached to the roots of their healthy, normal, parent trees (coastal redwoods can reproduce asexually by sprouting new shoots from roots or stumps), and survive by sucking energy from them. They can keep this up for a century. (Welsh)
Creative Commons image by Brian Caldwell at Flickr
This plant’s footprint expands and contracts from year to year, depending upon the host’s energy consumption. It’s clearly an adaptation of the parasitic variety. However, there are very few, which means that we can call this vampire endangered. I like how that sounds. Won’t you please help save these endangered albino vampires?
