The leaves of this meat-eating plant fill with rainwater. Cobra Lily. Monkey Cup. Insect larvae feed on the leftovers found inside the cups of these plants. Australian Sundew. Big Floating Bladderwort. These plants live in the water and trap tiny aquatic animals in their cup-shaped leaves.
Awesome 8 videos. Now Playing. Incredibly Clever Creatures. Up Next. Wildest Cats in the World. In fact, the legend of carnivorous plants has been immortalized in the cult classic American rock musical comedy horror film, Little Shop of Horrors. The monkey cup plant is found is tropical areas such as Borneo, Sumatra and Malaysia. The carnivorous plant is known as a monkey cup because monkeys have been seen drinking water from them in rainforests, as monkey cup vines produce a leaf called a pitcher, which, according to Hungry Plants , can sometimes be big enough to hold more than a litre of water.
Their cups passively collect and digest prey. There are around species of Sundew, and they all vary wildly in shape, size and growing requirements. Most are covered in tentacles which have glue-covered tips, and Carnivorous Plants UK reports these tentacles can move, helping the Sundew to quickly suffocate and digest insects which have become stuck. The Venus flytrap is one of the most well-known carnivorous plants and it eats mostly insects and arachnids. According to Listverse , the plant is so advanced it can tell the difference between live and non-living stimulus, and the lobes can snap shut in 0.
While there is only one species of Venus Flytrap, there are many varieties. Butterworts, or flypaper traps, can be active or passive and rely on sticky mucilage directly on the leaf surface to capture prey. He found round-leaved sundews growing extensively in the heaths of Sussex and studied them closely. Darwin fed sundew plants salts of ammonia, egg white and even small crumbs of cheese before describing their digestive systems and proving, unequivocally and for the first time, that carnivory exists in the plant world.
Drawn by the promise of a flower, the insect or small reptile entering the trap stimulates sensitive trigger hairs. These send an electrophysiological impulse to snap the leaf blades shut and ensnare the visitor. Once a meal is secured, the leaf secretes a digestive fluid to resorb the animal protein.
Venus flytraps are native to the subtropical wetlands of the US east coast. They can grow large enough to ensnare small lizards. The waterwheel plant Aldrovanda vesiculosa is an aquatic plant and the only underwater snap trap carnivore. Waterwheel plants grow worldwide, in nutrient-poor freshwater swamps.
Their tiny traps grow up to one centimetre in length and capture prey including mosquito larvae, small fish and tadpoles. Disguised as safe and delicious root structures, snare traps specialise in capturing single-celled organisms such as protozoans and ciliates, which they attract through chemicals.
Organisms enter the snare trap through opening slits in tubular projections, and unidirectional hairs shepherd the tiny organisms into a digestive bladder. The corkscrew plant Genlisea violacea is native to South America and develops small, purple blossoms. The image above shows the spiralling subterranean traps. Inside are tiny hairs that force prey into the plant's equivalent of a stomach.
Native to North America, parrot pitcher plants Sarracenia psittacina have tubular leaves that lay flat along the ground, offering a welcoming hidey-hole and chemical lure for their soil-dwelling prey, which are then forced toward the digestive tract with unidirectional hairs.
They have a similar form to other pitcher plants and are technically a combination of snare and pitfall traps. Suction traps are a feature of many aquatic carnivorous plants. Prey animals are drawn to lures at the trap entrance that mimic food or shelter. A prey's proximity to the trap entrance triggers a valve trapdoor to open into a hollow bladder, creating suction that then flushes the prey inside. The trapdoor then quickly swings shut and the entrance is sealed with slime to prevent escape.
A clump of aquatic bladderwort Utricularia vulgaris from the UK with transparent bladder traps. The filament-like shoots of aquatic bladderworts mimic algal threads that attract food for small crustaceans. They cover an enormous area of the UK and are home to many rare and declining wild plants, insects, amphibians and more. Get email updates about our news, science, exhibitions, events, products, services and fundraising activities.
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Where do carnivorous plants live? How do carnivorous plants attract their prey? How do carnivorous plants digest their food? How do carnivorous plants capture their prey? Pitfall traps Pitfall-type traps are formed by a single leaf or rosettes forming tubular or pitcher-shaped traps.
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