Hunting for traditional food in social media

An international team of researchers were originally looking into how climate change would affect highland Nepenthes species, when they stumbled upon information that some species were used for food.

They state that the two species most commonly used for food, Nepenthes ampullaria and Nepenthes mirabilis, both belong in the lowlands. Neither seem to be threatened by being harvested and used for food.

By searching on the social networks Flickr, Pinterest, Facebook and Youtube for peruik kera, the local name for the plant, the researchers came in contact with people who knew these traditional snacks. Not only that, the researchers also got an impression of the geographical distribution of the snack.