How the Venus Flytrap Knows Not To Eat the Good Guys
Scientists wanted to know whether the plant preyed on the same insects that pollinate it – and if it did not, to begin to understand why.
Mar 2, 2018
by Clyde Sorenson, North Carolina State University; Elsa Youngsteadt, North Carolina State University, and Rebecca Irwin, North Carolina State University
The Venus flytrap, Dionaea muscipula, lives in a tough neighborhood. It only grows in 12 counties in coastal North and South Carolina, in soils that are very nutrient-poor and often waterlogged. To augment these starvation resources, it captures and digests insects and other animal prey.
Of the roughly 600 known species of carnivorous plants worldwide, the Venus flytrap is by far the most famous; it fascinated Charles Darwin and many other naturalists since his time. Scientists have spent an extraordinary amount of time and effort trying to understand how its unique active snap-trap leaves close so quickly. But, for the Venus flytrap, no one has ever paid much attention to the critical service that animals provide for most flowering plants: pollination.
https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/animals/a19052991/how-the-venus-flytrap-knows-not-to-eat-the-good-guys/
