Oh yes! Even after Halloween, we can also learn about those plants that eat animals. You can think that this is not even possible but in the wild, some plants would devour an animal, including some mammals, which sounds like a perfect Halloween nightmare tale.
In real life though, some of them are so small that they can just eat some small animals like flies and ants, but it is quite impressive to see them doing it. You would not think that those plants with some spikes that look like teeth and a red interior mimicking a tongue can convert into such predatory creatures.
Today we will talk about the carnivorous species of plants we may encounter around the world and give some examples of what can they do to the prey they catch, and what are those prey they normally eat for breakfast.
Can pitcher plants eat animals?
Starting up with some of the plants that eat animals, we begin with the pitcher plants. These things look like a sock hanging in a rope with the mouth open, and they are the scary ones.
Why scary though? They look fairly inoffensive, to be honest, but the things they can do to their prey are just as similar and gross as a stomach can do. It is referred to as an open stomach that just digests prey that falls for it.
The shape of the pitcher plant is specially designed to catch unprepared prey from ever getting out from them. It is a pit with a rather slippery substance that would not allow any bugs or even small mammal to climb out.
The pit is filled with a liquid that is very similar to gastric juices in action, the ones that help your stomach digest the things you eat every day. If a prey gets into that, it is game over for it! The digestive enzymes would break down the unfortunate victim and just leave a husk at the bottom of the plant.
When it comes to scary plants, these are at the top of the list, even though they do not chew or something like some animals would do. So yes, pitcher plants can eat animals.
Can sundews eat animals?
Yes, sundews can eat animals, and they do it in a rather messy fashion which may be disgusting and gross for some, but it is necessary for the plant to survive in the environment they are usually in.
Sundews are one of those plants that eat animals by trapping them in some way. In the case of the sundews, they have some very small hairs at the ends of their stems which also have some drops of a liquid. This liquid is highly sticky and very colorful which attracts some animals to it.
When a flying bug decides to take a look, the plant would quickly start to roll the structure back to trap the bug even more with this sticky substance, converting it into its prey. From there, the episode of the pitcher plants making a juice of the prey it catches repeats itself.
Funnily enough, this is very comparable to what the brain activity looks like. The chemical receptors on the tip part of these plants can trigger an action just like our neurons would send information to each other, making in this case the curling action to trap the animal possible.
How can the Venus flytrap catch animals?
Now, with the most known plant that eats animals, the Venus flytrap. You do not need to ask if the Venus flytrap eats animals. That is fairly obvious (is in the name!) but the thing about them is how. How can the Venus flytrap catch animals?
Taking a look inside of the “mouth” you would see three hairs raising from that hinged leaf on both sides. Those hairs are trigger hairs, they would trigger the action of closing and trapping said flies or any other bugs.
What it is impressive about catching the prey is not even the fast they do it (which is less than a second. Yes, well, that is impressive), it is what happens next when the insect is inside, trapped in this mouth.
The plant would not use the teeth-like spikes to chew into its victim, but rather closing the mouth like a jail cell. The prey can’t escape and thus the movement they do inside the plant would make the stimuli necessary to close the trap even more.
Then, the plant would release a substance that would convert the inside of the trap into a stomach-like structure. It would seal the trap entirely and start digestion of the prey. What it is left of the animal is typically the husk, which would probably fall out of the trap when opens again, just to get another one.
It is amazing to see these plants eating some animals while being plants, the ones that get their nutrients from the soil down them. But you need to remember the environments in which these thrive: Very acidic soils for most plants, which does not have enough nutrients. The catch action is to solve these deficiencies in nutrients needed for success.
Conclusion
Finally, after talking about plants that eat animals, you would not believe they are way more species of carnivorous plants around the world. Around 700 that it is an impressive number for plants, which normally are at the bottom of the food chain.
In some instances, you would see some action like in sundews and in the Venus flytrap, where the victim can’t go out of the trap because the plant does not allow them to do so by curling or getting shut closed. And that’s the end of the road for the animal.
For others like the pitcher plants, it is just about patience. An animal falling down the pit trap, can’t go out again, making it a very passive process of eating food. It is scary and gross, but they do not do it for the looks, they do it for the survival benefits. And that is amazing to see!
