Carnivorous Venus Flytraps | Science Fact for Kids

What are flytraps?  They are plants. They eat animals. Like other plants, Venus' Flytraps gather nutrients from gases in the air and nutrients in the soil. Venus flytraps do not only rely on carnivory for energy but rather use the nitrogen-rich animal proteins to enable their survival in marginal soil conditions.  Carnivorous plants can be found all over the world but the Venus Flytrap is native to select boggy areas in North and South Carolina. 

These plants became endangered for human beings are fascinated with them and collected many of them from the wild. 

The leaves of Venus' Flytrap open wide and on them are short, stiff hairs called trigger or sensitive hairs. When anything touches these sensitive hairs twice in a short time, the two lobes of the leaves snap shut trapping whatever is inside. But, if two touches are separated long enough, like 1minut, it will not close its lobes. This can prevent some wrong judgment, like the hit of the rain. (It is the rare case that the rain hit the lobes twice in a short time.) 

If something really triggers it shuts up. The trap doesn't close all at first. It is thought that it stays open for a few seconds in order to allow very small insects to escape because they wouldn't provide enough food. If the object does not struggle inside it will reopen in about twelve hours for these are mostly to be something that isn't food for the plant, e.g., a stone, or a nut.

After the flytrap closes its lobs, the lobe manufactures digestive juices to digest their prey through a process of chemical breakdown analogous to digestion in animals and manufactures an antiseptic juice keeping the insect from decaying over the few days it is in the trap and purifies prey that it captures. It dissolves the soft, inner parts of the insect, but not the tough, outer part called the exoskeleton. The end products, especially salts and nitrogenous compounds, are absorbed by the plants to enable their survival under otherwise marginal or hostile environmental conditions.  

The trap reabsorbs the digestive fluid and then reopens. The leftover parts of the insect, the exoskeleton, are washed away by rain or blow away in the wind. The time it takes for the trap to reopen depends on the temperature, the size of the insect, the age of the trap. It usually takes 5-20 days. The carnivorous habit augments the diet derived from the poor soil.

After learning the knowledge about the Flytrap, you must be interested in it. Do you want to grow one? This is available on Amazon. Click the picture below and purchase one for your own entertainment.