It's a Trap!

A carnivore (say KAAR-nuh-vor) is something that eats meat to live. When you think of a carnivore, you might picture an animal such as a tiger or a wolf. But did you know that some plants also eat meat?  Meat-eating plants are called carnivorous plants. They make some of their food from sunlight, water, and carbon dioxide, just like other plants. But all plants also need nutrients from soil to stay healthy. Carnivorous plants grow in swamps, marshes, and bogs where the soil doesn’t have enough nutrients. So, they catch bugs and other small prey for extra nutrients. Carnivorous plants have three kinds of tricky traps to catch their prey: snap traps, sticky traps and pitfall traps.

Snap Traps

Snap traps close quickly around prey. Venus flytraps have this type of trap. Venus flytraps grow in bogs and swamps in North and South Carolina. These plants have leaves that open like jaws. Guard hairs stick out from the leaves’ edges like pointy teeth. The leaves make nectar, a sugary fluid, to attract prey. A hungry fly might smell the nectar. If it does, it lands on the open trap and crawls toward the nectar. The crawling fly brushes against trigger hairs on the leaves. That makes the plant’s top and bottom leaves snap shut around the fly.

The leaves’ guard hairs act like the bars of a cage. Escape is impossible. The Venus flytrap releases a sap that turns the fly into a liquid so the plant can suck up its nutrients. Slurping down a bug shake takes the plant between five to twelve days. Then the trap opens again. Waterwheel plants also use snap traps. They grow in swamps around the world.

Sticky Traps

Some carnivorous plants, such as butterworts, make sticky stuff to catch their prey. Butterworts are found in bogs throughout the Americas. Their leaves are covered in short hairs. The hairs make a shiny, sticky slime. When a curious bug drops in to see if the shiny stuff might be water or nectar, it sticks tight. The leaves bathe the insect in digestive juices until there’s nothing left but its outer shell.

Sundews also trick prey into thinking their slime is drops of water or nectar. A sundew holds its sticky trap on stalks that grow from the edges of its leaves. Once an insect is stuck, the sundew slowly wraps the leaf around its prey, a bit like an octopus curls its tentacles. The plant’s digestive juices finish the job. Sundews are found in bogs around the world.

Pitfall Traps

Other meat-eating plants use a pitfall, a kind of hidden trap. Pitcher plants grow in swamps and wetlands around the world. Their leaves are shaped like tubes. Rainwater collects at the bottom. Their leaves aren’t flowers, but they look enough like them that bugs are fooled. The top of the leaf tube is slippery. When a bug crawls on the top of the leaf tube, it slips and slides into the water at the bottom. The tube is lined with hairs that point down. Even if the bug crawls out of the water at first, it can’t make it past the hairs. It ends up back at the bottom. The plants’ digestive juices mix with the water, and the bug is eaten.

The parrot pitcher plant is even trickier. This plant grows in wet forest areas from Georgia to Louisiana. It has the same tube shape as other pitcher plants, but it also has see-through patches in its leaves. The patches allow sunlight to shine in. The parrot pitcher plant makes small drops of nectar. When a bug goes inside to look for more nectar, the light shining through the leaves confuses it. It thinks it’s crawling out when it’s really going deeper into the plant. Once the bug is deep inside, it’s trapped.

Plant Predators

About 630 species of carnivorous plants have been discovered so far. They grow on every continent except Antarctica. Most eat small prey such as insects, but some are big enough to catch small reptiles and fish. Big or small, they’re all clever hunters who perfectly fit where they live.