Charles Darwin didn’t live to see it, but one of his hunches just got a 21st-century confirmation. A new study in Nature Communications finds that plant species in the Saxifraga genus are indeed carnivores, reports Smithsonian Magazine. Researchers proved his hypothesis via a Saxifraga species native to China. They found that mature plants with sticky, hair-covered branches snared an average of 71 insects each. Experiments showed the plants lure prey with scent, digest them using an enzyme seen in other carnivorous plants, and absorb their nutrients—confirmed via nitrogen-labeled fruit flies.
“Talk about an amazing feeling,” study co-author Doug Soltis of the University of Florida tells New Scientist. “To have the opportunity to confirm a prediction of Darwin is both humbling and very exciting.” Genetic analysis further backed their carnivorous status, hinting more Saxifraga relatives with similar hairs could be quiet insect hunters, just as Darwin suspected, per Live Science. Notably, the plants mostly avoid snagging their own pollinators. Darwin himself tried to prove his theory more than 150 years ago, but his experiments were unable to do so.