Predatory Plants – The fascinating facts about the meat eating flowers
There are a large number of plants on this planet that use a variety of deadly tactics to entice curious insects in their trap. These plants appear so innocent, little and harmless, however some of these plants can take up and entire nest if mosquito larvae in less than half a second!
After the plant catches its prey, the lethal fluids within the plants organ slowly devour the unfortunate insect. Once the flower takes all that it needs, it expels the left overs and the process starts again. It can take up to 48 hours for the plant to eat a fly.
These meat eating plats tend to grow in areas where there is little nutritional value from the soil from which they are rooted; they have evolved over millions of years to seek alternative sources of food. With little water or nutrients, insects provide the only other option for these plants to survive in their hostile environment.
Some of these plants, you would not expect them to be a meat eater, they can be quite ‘normal’ looking, some traps can be disguised as a couple of leaves or small pools of honey to attract more insects. It amazing to think that these plants actually have quite a large intelligence level. Enough so that it can work out that insects are attracted to sweet nectar, let’s make a trap that looks like it and hope for the best.
Some plants will catch their dinner by having the insect stuck to a residue so that it can slowly take the goodness out of the insect. Some plats, like the Venus fly trap, are less subtle. This means the plant will quickly snap shut, locking the insect in its stomach.
The fascination towards these plants has grown immensely in the Western world with many keeping the plants in their home. They are quite difficult to look after, you have to try and mirror their natural environment as much as possible. Trying to feed a Venus fly trap can be quite tricky and they are not ideal if you have children. They will be too tempted to touch its trap, it would hut them at all however when the plant closes with no insect inside, it will die because it needs the energy obtained from its prey to start again.
