This Plant Covers Itself in Insect Corpses as a Grim Defense Mechanism

It's a shrewd but certainly dark adaptive strategy. The serpentine columbine, a pretty herbaceous plant endemic to California's wet coastal regions, doesn't defend against or attack its enemies directly. Instead, it sends out a chemical signal, which attracts random nearby bugs who then detour to the columbine to check things out but suddenly find themselves ensnared on the plant's "sticky" surfaces--which are leaves and appendages coated with layers of hairlike barbs. These insect passerby, kno...