Imagine that you're a fly. you're just zipping
around the sky, looking for a place to rest, when
you see nice pink leaf. that looks like a nice place
to land. you think to yourself in your fly head. as
you rest your feet on the leaf, you notice
something strange. this leaf is hairy. you begin to
make your move, but you trigger the plant's reflex.
snap! in one-tenth of a second, you are caught in
the venus flytrap. you will be digested in five to
twelve days. welcome to the world of carnivorous
plants!
there are over a quarter of a millions plant
species. only 600 or so are carnivorous. we call
them this because they attract, trap, and eat bugs.
like other plants, they get energy from the sun.
but unlike other plants, they get their nutrients
from their prey. carnivorous plants live in bogs
and places where the soil lacks nutrients. most
plants get nutrients from the soil. carnivorous
plants have turned to other sources.
the snap of the venus flytrap is not the only way
that plants eat bugs. pitcher plants trick their prey
into landing on them. they offer nectar bribes to
the foolish insects that would take them. true to
their name, pitcher plants have deep chambers.
their landing surface is slippery. they have
inward pointing hairs, making it hard to escape.
the fly lands on the pitcher plant to eat, but slips
into a pit filled with digestive fluids and is eaten.
then there're sundews. we call them sundews
because they sparkle in the sun as if covered in
morning dew. of course, that sparkle is from
something much more treacherous. it is a sweet
goo called mucilage that bugs can't resist.
sundews create mucilage to attract bugs. as they
fly in to eat, bugs become trapped in the very
object of their desire. they soon exhaust
themselves by trying to escape the mucilage. or
the sundew's tentacles, which respond to prey by
curling around them, smother them. bugs usually
die in about 15 minutes. then the plant dissolves
its prey in enzymes and absorbs the nutrients.
have you ever walked into trouble and found that
you couldn't get out? so has every insect that has
ever wandered into a corkscrew plant. bugs love
to investigate plants for nectar and food.
corkscrew plants have inviting stems. curved
hairs line the inside of these stems. these hairs
allow insects to go up the stems, but not back.
going forward leads a chamber filled with
digestive fluid, the plant's stomach. bugs who
wander into the corkscrew plant find that they are
unable to escape. they must march to their own
demise.
and then there are the bladderworts. they're about
as nice as they sound. they live in water and float
near the surface. their traps are like small bladders
hidden beneath the water. only their flowers are
visible from the surface. when bugs swim into the
trigger hairs, the plant reacts. a trapdoor in the
bladder opens up. the bladder sucks up the prey
and the water surrounding it. a tenth of a second
later, the bladder shuts again. the plant has
trapped the prey. it releases digestive fluids. the
prey will be digested within hours.
carnivorous plants might sound tough, but they
are difficult to keep at home. they are built to
survive in places that other plants cannot. this
specialization comes at a cost. they have a hard
time adapting to other environments. their
strengths become weaknesses in rich soil. they
depend on the harsh yet delicate environments in
which they thrive. they are not so hardy after all.
still, there's something to be said about the power
of life when one finds a plant that can survive in
barren soil.
q: carnivorous plants have some unique and amazing characteristics. what do these characteristics
suggest about life and the world that we live in? in other words, what can carnivorous plants teach us
about the world? make a point and support it with an example from the text. explain what your support
shows.
explain long paragraph