How do Venus flytraps catch flies
The short answer is Venus flytraps don’t usually trap flies. In fact, winged insects only make up about 5% of their diet, the majority of their “diet” is mostly spiders and ants.
Here Is How We Arrived At That Answer Of
How Venus Flytraps Catch Flies
When it comes to deadly predators, plants generally don’t come to mind. After all, they are typically at the bottom of the food chain, but the Carolinas are home to one vicious veggie, the Venus flytrap. Using its famous trap, it can catch prey faster than you can blink.
But what attracts and lures those flies inside a Venus flytrap in the first place?
The funny thing about Venus flytraps is they don’t usually trap flies. In fact, winged insects only make up about 5% of their diet, and we really ought to be calling it the Carolina spider trap because it’s only found in the Carolinas, and it mostly traps spiders and ants. But of course, regardless of species, that bug is going to have a bad day.
Also Read: 10 most Fascinating Carnivorous Plants
It all starts when the victim wanders into the trap, possibly lured by the plant’s bright red hue or fragrant scent, or maybe they just happen to be unlucky and just blunders into the trap. The trap itself looks like an open mouth; it’s made of two pads attached to a hinge. On each one of those pads, there are usually three tiny trigger hairs in a triangle configuration. And those trigger hairs are very, very sensitive to being disturbed.
The first time an insect knocks into a hair, it sets off an electrical signal, sort of like the electrical currents in your brain. That signal starts the countdown. If the bug escapes within 20 to 30 seconds, nothing else happens; that way, the plant doesn’t waste energy. However, if the bug brushes against another hair, the Venus flytrap snaps in just a hundred milliseconds, about four times faster than you can blink.
When The trap slams shut, it rapidly goes from a convex to concave shape, and the little spikes along the rims of the pads interlock to form a cage. Now. Of course, the insect isn’t happy with this turn of events. So it tries to escape, which is exactly what the plant wants. The more the insect struggles, the more it knocks into the trigger hair and the tighter the trap closes. And after an hour or two, the trap locks completely, cells on the edges of the pad then secrete moisture, which glues the edges together to form an airtight seal.
Suddenly that trap isn’t a mouth anymore; it’s a stomach. Digestive juices flood into the closed compartment, dissolving the insect’s soft organs, and the Venus fly trap’s lining sucks up that nutrient-rich cocktail. After about a week, all that’s left is an empty husk—the insect exoskeleton.
Next, the trap reopens, and the husk tumbles out.
The Venus is now ready for its next meal.
Flies Are Not The Venus Flytraps Only Source Of Energy
But bugs aren’t the only food that this trap captures; just like leaves on other plants, the trap’s surface contains a green pigment that lets it convert the sun’s energy into sugar through a process called photosynthesis.
So then why bother with the bugs?
Well, Venus flytraps live in acidic waterlogged soil that doesn’t have many nutrients. So instead of slurping up nitrogen and phosphorus through its roots, it needs to “borrow” some from the bugs. That explains why it shares its home with so many other hungry, carnivorous plants, like pitcher plants and sundews, which could only mean one thing the Carolinas are not a fun place to be a bug.
