Myrmecodia uses its lenticular warts to suck nutrients from the insects thrown out by the ants.

It was not a pretty plant, but it did have an admirable functionality, with spidery tendrils hooked onto other pieces of weed to form the impenetrable mat that sucked nutrients from the ocean.

Grubs hatch from eggs laid on the edges of leaves and burrow into the leaf to suck nutrients, the tree's own latex shielding the insect.

You might as well suck nutrients from a tube.

THIS WEEK Removing Weeds, Staking Tomatoes Pull weeds, which will suck moisture and nutrients from garden plants.

A proboscis allows them to suck nutrients from soft-bodied invertebrates, and their digestive tract has diverticula extending into the legs.

Once these spores or conidia germinate, they produce a structure called a haustoria, capable of "sucking" nutrients from the plant cells directly under the epidermis of the leaf.

The enzyme, cutinase, is present in nature, made by parasites to eat through the shiny surfaces of tree leaves, so the parasite can suck nutrients out of the inner parts.

The floaters opened cavernous maws and sucked the minerals and nutrients that were suspended in the gas giant's atmosphere into stomachs the size of a nacelle on a starship.

Now that sounds like a reasonable idea, but Norway maples are notorious for sucking all the moisture and nutrients from anything except poison ivy.