Carnivorous plant

 Carnivorous plants are plants that get most of their nutrients from consuming animals and protozoos, specially insects and arthropods, however, they can also do the photosyntesis. These plants have adapted to grow in places where the soil is poor in nutrients, like nitrogen. such as acidic bog.

Charles Darwin first wrote about these plants in 1875 in his book "Insectivorous Plants".

Each type of carnivorous plant have a different trapping mechanism:

-Snap traps: The only two snap traps plants are the Venus flytrap and the waterwheel plant, these two had a common ancestor with the snap trap adaptation. They catches a variety of arthropods, including spiders. (1)

1. A venus flytrap

-Flypaper traps: The flypaper trap utilises sticky mucilage or glue. The leaf of flypaper traps is studded with mucilage secreting glands. (2)

-Pitfall traps: These are plants with a internal chamber with a digestive liquid that is used to drown insects. (3)

-Bladder traps: This method is used by the plant Utricularia, this is a very complex mechanism and is used by aquatic plants.(4)

3.

 

Heliamphora chimantensis

2. Drosera capensis

4. The Utricularia

-Lobster-pot traps: A lobster-pot trap is a chamber that is easy to enter, and whose exit is either difficult to find or obstructed.(5)

 

Specialized multicellular secretion glands produce digestive fluid that smother, kill, digest prey and make a solution to assimilate released nutrients, this is used to digest its prey.

5.

 

Sarracenia psittacina