Facebook helps discover new carnivorous plant

A huge carnivorous plant has become the first plant species to be "discovered on Facebook" after an amateur researcher in Brazil posted a photo on the social network. The photo was spotted by scientists on the social networking site.

The plant, which can grow upto one-and-a-half metres in length, was identified by scientists as a new species, and had since then been named 'drosera magnifica', or magnificent sundew.

The plant was first photographed by amateur researcher Reginaldo Vasconcelos in a forest on a mountain top in Minas Gerais, southeastern Brazil, in 2013, and posted it on his Facebook page.

"It is the first plant that was discovered on Facebook. It is the largest sundew in the Americas, and the second-largest carnivorous plant in the Americas," said Andreas Fleischmann from the Botanical State Collection of Munich, and co-author of a research paper on the plant.

The sticky carnivorous leaves on the plant can grow up to 24 cm in length and can ensnare insects the size of a dragonfly.

That the plant species that is large and eye-catching, had remained undiscovered for so long had surprised scientists, especially as the mountain on which it was found was easily accessible.

The species, found only on a single mountain peak, remains, "critically endangered".

Internet-based image databases had emerged as an "important tool" for plant enthusiasts and botanists to share their interest and knowledge, the researchers said.

Photos taken by amateurs, in the majority of cases are useful in terms of providing location data that would lead to further fieldwork by experts, researchers said.

The discovery of the magnificent sundew, however, is "the first plant species to be recorded as being discovered through photographs on a social network," say the researchers in the study published in the journal Phytotaxa.

When the amateur researcher posted a picture of a plant on Facebook, he could have had no idea it could be a new plant species in the world "discovered on Facebook."

"It is the first plant that was discovered on Facebook. It is the largest sundew in the Americas, and the second-largest carnivorous plant in the Americas," Andreas Fleischmann from the Bavarian State Collection, Germany, was quoted as saying.

"It unites amateurs and professionals in their common interests of plant identification and taxonomy, frequently resulting in the discovery of new regional records," the authors wrote.

This is "the first plant species to be recorded as being discovered through photographs on a social network", they added.