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Plants can make wonderful decorations to the landscape, nature, and the home. But, what happens when the beautiful green plants turn carnivorous? Zero2Hero presents an informative view of plants, such as the basic Venus Fly Trap and the cephalotus (Australian pitcher plant), to plants that eat entire birds!
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Transcript provided by YouTube:
just as in the story of Hansel and Gretel where a wicked witch built a
house from a tasty gingerbread to lure children to their death so do some
plants and trees use their sweet sticky fruit to lure insects into theirs but
unlike the tales by the Brothers Grimm this is far from fantasy carnivorous
plants have been around far longer than we have the oldest carnivorous plant
leaf fossil was found in 35 to 47 million year old amber that was found in
the Baltic regions stay tuned to find out which of these plants is cunning
enough to bring Birds to their gruesome death
number 10 the Venus flytrap probably the best known of the carnivorous plants is
the Venus flytrap it’s commonly found in homes as a functional house plant after
all no one wants a kitchen filled with flies originally the Venus flytrap is
from the boggy lands of North and South Carolina they developed their cunning
feeding methods as a means of gaining much-needed nutrients because as the
soil quality is so poor it is unable to sustain much complex life they feed by
snapping shut the two halves of their leaves when an insect lands on them
trapping their unfortunate prey inside their finger like thorns intertwine
making any bid for escape futile they are not unscrupulous though they don’t
just snap at every passing fly they only choose to close when the fly itself
tells them to do so that’s right when they touch the to
trigger hairs on the inside of the open leaf triggering a deadly reaction but
recent researches found it’s even creepier than that
professor Renier Hedrick from the University of würzburg when talking
about becoming caught inside of the flytrap says if you just sit there and
wait the next morning the trap will open and you can leave but if you panic you
induce a deadly cycle of disintegration this is because venus flytraps can
actually count one touch of the hairs and nothing happens two touches and the
trap Springs closed in a tenth of a second three touches and the plant
starts producing its digestive juices the fifth touch then releases the
plant’s digestive enzymes into the leaf and the more touches the trigger hairs
receive the more enzymes are produced so the more a fly bites to escape the more
it’s telling the plant to eat it alive I think I knew a girl like that once
number nine the sundews or drosera also known as this drosera mr. Charles Darwin
once said about the sundews it’s a wonderful plant or rather a most
sagacious animal I will stick up for drosera to the day of my death perhaps
I’m not as profound as Darwin however I do think that they are one of the
your species their long leaves are covered in sticky tentacles making it
look like it should live at the bottom of the ocean but in actuality they can
be found in one form or another all over the world their tentacles all contain
nectar glands that produce a sticky droplet of digestive enzymes of their
tips which gleam in the light giving them the name sundews some sundew plants
have long slender leaves and others have bowl-like leaves but whatever they look
like they all act in the same way lured to the plant by its sweet scent
insects soon become stuck in the tacky do causing them to struggle this motion
causes the leaf to curl around the insect wrapping it tightly in its leaves
now unlike the Venus flytrap these insects are not eaten alive but rather
they drown in the sticky dew and then they’re broken down by the plants the
just of enzymes number 8 the North American pitcher plant I know what
you’re thinking but no this plan has nothing to do with pitchers of beer the
term pitcher refers to its leaves which have evolved into large lidded funnels
perfect for the trapping of unsuspecting prey the north american pitcher plant
can be found along the east coast throughout Texas the Great Lakes and
southeastern Canada unlike the Venus flytrap in the sundews
pitcher plants don’t grasp their prey but rather trap them in an inescapable
prism by means of a pitfall trap insects and other unfortunate small creatures
are drawn to the lip of the pitchers by the smell fits nectar or the bright
colors of the leaves but are then met with slippery waxy deposits causing them
to drop into the liquid reservoir of the digestive enzymes in the base of the
funnel one species of pitcher takes it even further to guarantee a meal and
laces its nectar with Komine an insect narcotic once the prey is inside it
quickly becomes apparent that there is no way out
waxy walls make climbing difficult and closer to the bottom hairs grow
downwards making any bit for freedom impossible finally one spray hits the
liquid they are quickly drown and slowly digested by the plant number seven
monkey cups a cute little name for a slightly
sinister plant right found from the tropics of China all the way down to
Australia monkey cups are species of tropical pitcher plant specializing in
pitfall traps they get their cute name because on occasion monkeys have been
observed drinking rainwater from them unlike the North American pitchers who
grow in the ground monkey cups are creepers using the trees
and the force to climb high into the canopies their pitchers then form on the
end of hanging tendrils attracting insects with the sweet scent of pollen
these traps work in much the same ways other pitchers they are too slippery to
climb out of and so insects drown in the fluid inside the movement of the
drowning insect then stimulates the plant to release its digestive fluid a
fluid so powerful that a midge will completely dissolve in just hours the
majority of these pitchers will catch only small prey but the Nepenthes Rajah
has also been known to even digest mice in some cases these pictures even enlist
the help of other insects one plan provides a chamber in its stem allowing
ants to live in it and to eat some of the decaying prey the ant sits at the
top of the pitcher and eats and as it does smaller pieces of its food drop
back into the digestive liquid and can now be dissolved more quickly than a
whole insect would number 6 the Cobra Lily the Cobra Lily
also known as the California pitcher plant is the sole member of its genus
and unsurprisingly can be found in California and Oregon growing only in
bogs in pine forests or other areas of poor soil quality it’s called the Cobra
Lily because of the shape of its leaves large bulbous and curling over they seem
to resemble a Cobra preparing to strike complete with dangling leaves that look
like a snakes or tongue this pitcher plan is a little different from the
others and does not use a pitfall trap but rather a lobster pod trap meaning
it’s easy to get in but impossible to get out of
once inside drawn in again by the smell of something tasty downwards pointing
hairs lead insects towards the gathered liquid at the base of the pitcher where
they then drown unlike the other pitcher plans Cobra
these do not seem to excrete their own digestive enzymes but rather rely on
bacteria to break their prey down for them
number five bladderworts spread across every continent except Antarctica
bladderworts are made up of over 220 species both terrestrial and aquatic
these plants don’t rely on the scent of their nectar to attract prey though but
rather they lay in wait ready to spring their traps as soon as their prey moves
close enough the majority of animals eaten by bladderworts are microscopic
protozoa but the larger specimens of this carnivorous plan have been known to
take water fleas and even small tadpoles the plant’s bladder chambers sit in the
water on the outside of the leaf there are small hairs as these hairs are
grazed by passing animals they trigger a reaction a trapdoor opens up the water
and the unfortunate animal are sucked inside the bladder and it quickly closes
leaving the prey trapped inside believe it or not it does all of this within a
ten thousandth of a second pretty impressive for such a small plant number
for rainbow plants the rainbow plant is native to the dry deserts of Australia
although growing separately from other carnivorous plants evolution has devised
a similar solution to that of the sub news for dealing with a lack of
nutrients glands that produce a sticky trap
it’s these globules of digestive enzymes shining in the Sun that has given the
rainbow plant its name their leaves and stems are all covered in fine hairs that
secrete their sticky traps however they are a passive plant acting more like a
living flypaper trap as the insects hit them they do not curl around the insects
but instead the insects are digested right where they lay number three the
water will plant closely related to the Venus flytrap the
water will plant is a free-floating carnivorous plant catching and eating
small invertebrate in much the same ways that Venus flytrap it consists of two
lobes containing trigger hairs once these are triggered they fire the snap
trap this closes underwater in just 10 milliseconds making it one of the
fastest moving plants on the planet number 2 butterworts now don’t let the
name fool you butterworts do not operate in the same way as bladderworts but
instead are more similar in style to the rainbow plant operating is a simple
flypaper trap found throughout North and South America Europe and Asia these are
a quite common plant this succulent plant has leaves that are a bright green
or pinkish shade these colorful leaves contain two types of cells one that
produces sticky mucus and the other that produces the plant’s digestive enzymes
trapping and eating its prey where it lies number one bird catcher trees yes
you heard that right but don’t get too excited it’s not
simply a gigantic flytrap big enough to catch a bird it’s a little more sinister
than that as these trees actually use live bait native to New Zealand and the
Pacific items these trees are able to catch and kill birds after they have
flower to the spring their seed heads change color usually turning black and
start to produce a thick sticky glue this glue in turn traps passing insects
but wait didn’t they say this was a bird catching tree why yes I did
so these trapped in struggling little insects now look like an easy meal to
the birds in the area that in turn land unknowingly on the deadly tree
these birds soon become covered in the sticky substance themselves and will
either get stuck to the tree or will fall to the floor as the glue in their
wings makes it impossible to fly if other passing hunters do not take these
disabled birds they will slowly die their bodies then break down into the
soil around the roots of the trees providing a nutrient-rich soil for them
to flourish can you tell us about your favorite carnivorous plant let us know
in the comments below and clickety-click that
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you
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This post was previously published on YouTube.
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