Chapter IV — 77 — Nepenthes 



overloaded beyond the limits at which the antiseptic effect could be 

 expected to work. On the basis of experiments, Jensen regards it as 

 sure that certain larvae which live on the debris in pitchers have an 

 antiferment which is not possessed by the same kind of larvae when 

 inhabiting water in pools. 



Under the title, ''The animal world of Nepenthes pitchers", August 

 Thienemann (1932) brought together all that at the time of publi- 

 cation was known about the fauna to be found in the pitchers of 

 Nepenthes. Long ago, as early as 1747, G. E. Rumphius, the renowned 

 explorer, remarked in his Herbarium Aniboinense (pt. 5, p. 122): — 



"In aperto varii repunt vermicuK et insecta, quae in hoc moriuntur, 

 excepta parva quadam squilla gibba, quae aliquando in hoc reperitur 



et vivit " Since that time innumerable observations have been 



made and it would scarcely be profitable to detail them. 



The first question which will occur to one interested in this fact is 

 one which Jensen (1910) asked, namely, how can animals live in the 

 digestive fluids of the pitchers. In answer he said that he beheved 

 there was indicated the presence of an antipepsin formed by the 

 animals in question. Dover (1928) agreed with him, but did not go so 

 far as to assert the presence of an antipepsin, though he beheved that 

 mosquito larvae do possess such, and suggested that the "presence of 

 neutral salts in the tissues of the larvae might possibly retard peptic 

 digestion;" Thienemann, however, maintained that there is no bind- 

 ing evidence that there is an antipepsin and goes further in saying that 

 he sees no special problem to be involved. The numerous internal 

 parasites of the animal body hve in body fluids rich in ferments. 

 Dover, himself, observed that the larvae of Megarhinus acaudatus can 

 remain alive in a very weak iodine and in a strong pepsin solution and 

 in the latter Kved some days, pupated and hatched out. Are we then 

 to expect if an antipepsin is present that there is also an antiiodine? 

 We may recall here that Hepburn and Jones (191 9) believe that they 

 demonstrated the presence of antiproteases in the larvae of Sarcophaga 

 which inhabit the pitchers of Sarracenia flava. 



The inhabitants of the pitchers are divided by Thienemann into 

 three classes, (a) those which are occasionally found, but which belong 

 properly in other places (nepenthexene) ; {h) those which occur, find in 

 the pitcher suitable conditions and can pass their watery fives there 

 but which are not confined to them (nepenthephile) and thirdly those 

 which five only in the pitchers and are not found elsewhere (nepen- 

 thebionts). Since the pitchers are commonly only partly filled with 

 fluid, namely, ca. up to the waxy zone, there is a "terrestrial fauna" 

 as well as an aquatic fauna. 



Of the former, aside from 2 species of leaf miners (which, however, 

 have been claimed to behave in relation to the water level) which are 

 questionably peculiar to Nepenthes pitchers, there are four spiders, 

 three of which are claimed to be nepenthebiont. The 4 species are 

 Misumenops nepenthicola, M. Thienemannii, Thomisus callidus and Th. 

 nepenthephilus. Th. callidus is nepenthephile; the others have been 

 found up tin the present only in pitchers of Nepenthes, but are not 

 confined to any one species. But they are excluded from .V. ampul- 

 laria because there is no w^axy zone, states Thienemann; they should 



