▲ The metamorphosed leaves of the flytrap are the deepest routines that insects have ever walked. Figure/Wikipedia
The routines you think are just a means of survival.
On the stage of nature, plants seem to have always played the role of "obedience" to animals, but sometimes animals will also become the "dish of food" of plants, when the roles of predators and predators are exchanged, a twisty and bizarre story is staged.
In the plant world, there is such a group of "meat-eating" plants - carnivorous plants.
What are carnivorous plants?
Carnivorous plants, as the name suggests, are plants that can "eat" insects and, more professionally, plants that can catch and digest insects to increase their own lack of nutrients. Why is there a need for increased nutrition? Because most of these plants grow in nutrient-poor swamps, beaches or acidic peatlands in tropical and temperate regions, and some wild species live in damp and dark environments with insufficient light, the energy obtained by their own poor photosynthesis alone is far from enough.
▲ Carnivorous plants mostly grow in swamps, beaches and other soil-poor environments. Photo/Visual China
Do carnivorous plants only eat insects? No. In fact, in addition to eating insects, such plants will also catch various arthropods, link animals and even small vertebrates, so more and more scholars call them "carnivorous plants". The "carnivorous plant" was handed down from the Time of Darwin, and we still use this phrase today.
At present, there are more than 600 species of carnivorous plants in the world, of which 27 species of carnivorous plants are native to China, which belong to the genus Nepenthes, thatched grass, raccopods, insect catchers and tanuki. With the fame of carnivorous plants in the horticultural world, many imported varieties have also become regular customers in the Chinese flower market, such as " Nepenthes red bottle " , Charleson bottle grass and so on.
▲ Nepenthes red bottle is a common cultivar in the flower market. Figure/Figureworm Creative
Like all plants, carnivorous plants can neither run nor jump, so what secret weapons are they hunting with?
Deadly slime – thatched vegetables, insect traps
Darwin once said: "I am more concerned with the origin of thatched vegetables than with the origin of all the species in the world." It can be seen that that thatched vegetables have a certain status in the carnivorous plants.
▲ The red glandular hairs of the Cape of Good Hope can secrete a large number of "dewdrops" that stick to passing insects. Photo/Visual China
There are 6 species in China: round-leaved thatched grass, shield leaf thatched cream, long-leaf grassy vegetable, long-pillar grassy vegetable, spoon-leaf grassy cream and gemtiro. It is also deeply loved by the horticultural community, and the common ones on the market are Cape of Good Hope grass and gemdale.
▲ Gemdiluo, a common horticultural flower variety. Photo/ Zeng Gang
There are a large number of glandular hairs on the leaves of the grass, when the insect accidentally falls on it, the glandular hair will secrete a large amount of mucus to stick to it, if the insect struggles, it will stimulate more glandular hair to tightly surround it. At the same time, the leaves roll the insect onto the gland, which then secretes digestive juices, which digest and absorb it.
Most of the time there is plenty of food, but in the treacherous forest, competition is everywhere. The hunting operation of thatched vegetables may seem quite advanced, but the process takes a long time, and if the insects are constantly struggling, they will attract the attention of other animals nearby, such as toads. This kind of "head-snatching" thing, the toad will not miss, and the thatched cream can only watch the "cooked duck fly".
Like thatched vegetables, insect-catching violas are also a group of "mucus killers", but the insect-catching viola belongs to the Tanuki family, and the grass-paste is not very close, and there are 2 species of wild insect-catching viola in China: alpine insect-catching viola and northern insect-catching viola.
▲ The Esther trap is very similar to succulents of the Sedum family, but the leaves are not easy to turn red. Photo: Garden in the Palm of your hand
The leaves of the genus Viola have very small mucus stalks, and each glandular stalk secretes a drop of mucus, and the mucus recovery ability is also very strong. To prevent prey from being swept away by the rain, the edges of the blades of the viola are slightly curled inward.
Big mouth eats four squares - flytrap grass
Compared with the slow rolling of leaves by thatched vegetables, the feeding method of flycatchers is much more advanced. Flycatchers belong to the genus Ofcatchers in the family Thatchedaceae, its secret weapon is the trap, all the leaves of the flycatcher are specialized into traps, the inside of the clip will secrete honey to attract prey, the edges of the clip will grow full of thorns, and the central area of each leaf has 3 or 4 fine spines.
▲ Venus flycatcher is a common cultivar, and the metamorphosed leaves and the thorny hairs on the leaf edges form an "insect catching artifact" - the insect trap. Photo/Visual China
These fine spikes are like a cleverly designed trigger that will not be activated in the event of an ordinary raindrop collision. When the prey is attracted by the honey juice of the clip and accidentally touches one of the fine spines, the clip will not merge, but the "time bomb" begins to sound, and when the insect triggers the second fine thorn, the trap will be quickly activated and the trap will be closed.
Cleverly, the prickly hairs on the leaf edge are not tightly sewn, and tiny insects can escape from the gaps in the trap, because small insects cannot meet the energy needs of the plant, and if there is no prey in the trap, it will be opened in time to preserve the vitality. But if the insects are big enough, it is not easy to escape, and the more they resist, the tighter the leaves are clamped, and eventually they become food for the flytraps, and when the trap is opened again, only the remains are left.
▲ Potted landscaping of flytraps. Photo/Visual China
This wonderful flycatcher is only distributed in the southeastern United States, North Carolina and South Carolina coastal wetlands, and there will be some cultivated species in China, such as piranha flycatcher, flower market flycatcher and so on.
Flycatchers also have a relatively little-known cousin, raccoons. Raccoon is also a species of thatched vegetables, which is basically an underwater replica of the flycatcher. The rotiding leaves of raccoidal are deadly traps, each of which is edged with sensitive villi, only a few millimeters long, capable of catching dried shrimp and copepods, although the resistance in the water will be much greater than that of the air, which does not affect its ability to prey. In China, the distribution of raccoon is very narrow, only produced in parts of Heilongjiang Province.
▲ Tanuki is the largest genus of carnivorous plants, with more than 200 species. Figure/Wikipedia
The world's martial arts, only fast is not broken. Faster than flytraps are tanuki algae. Tanuki is a species of the genus Tanuki in the family Tanuki, with a wide variety of species. The hunting method of Tanuki algae mainly relies on small insect traps, which have a cyst that can be quickly opened and closed, and there are tentacles around the cyst, and as soon as the small prey touches the cyst, the trap sac will open the valve, inhale it into the sac, and digest and absorb it, and the reaction speed is not even more than 1 millisecond.
Bottle making masters - Nepenthes, bottle grass, earthen vase grass
Whether it is thatched vegetables or flytraps, it is always necessary to move their own bodies to catch prey, and some kinds of carnivorous plants can already hunt "without moving, without shaking".
Like some carnivorous plants of the bromeliad family, their traps are composed of all the leaves, all of which are enclosed in a bucket-like structure, and the surface of the leaves at the top of the trap has wax, which will slip like ice, and if the insect accidentally falls during the test, it will be killed by the liquid with acidic and digestive enzymes at the bottom, and will be decomposed and absorbed.
There are also more subtle fall trap insectivorous plants, such as earth bottle grass, bottle grass and pitcher plants, their single leaves are specialized to form a bottle-shaped or cage-like trap structure, once the insect falls into it, it is difficult to climb out, and eventually drowns in the digestive juice, decomposed, and absorbed by the glands in the bottle.
▲ Wild purple bottle grass is found all over the east coast of the United States, the Great Lakes region and southeastern Canada. Photo/Visual China
In order to confuse insects, these traps are magical. The traps formed by the specialization of the leaves of some plants will secrete sweet honey juice at the mouth of the bottle, and the prey will smell the fragrance and suck the honey as much as it wants, while moving towards the smooth edge of the trap. Some plants will "empty gloves white wolf", bottle-shaped leaf lids specialized into brilliant markings, all the way to the bottle, this structure is very similar to the tubular flowers, so that insects mistakenly think that there is nectar inside. Other plants can even simulate the smell of flowers, releasing floral-like substances to attract insects.
▲ The lid of the earthen vase grass can confuse the prey. Photo/Visual China
Cobra bottle grass, which lives in California and Oregon, can grow to a height of one meter, and the entrance is covered under the spherical bottle cap, which is very hidden. The dorsal side of the fishtail appendage of cobra bottle grass will secrete a large amount of molasses and emit a strong odor, insects crawl into the trap bottle along the honey gland, and insects after eating and drinking enough want to leave, but they are easily confused by the light spots in the bottle, and these marks are mistaken for an exit and trapped in the trap bottle. The top of the bottle is waxy, the hairs in the middle and lower parts are also facing downwards, and the insects will gradually fall into the digestive juice at the base of the bottle.
▲ The mouth of the cobra bottle grass is located under the expanded head, and the top of the bottle has a light-transmitting marking. Figure/Wikipedia
Too much rainfall in South America can sometimes cause trouble for the sun bottle grass that lives here, but they have also cleverly evolved new structures – each bottle has crack-like grooves in the bottle to drain excess rainwater, similar to the overflow design on the sink, thereby adjusting the water level in the bottle to ensure water balance. In addition, the inner surface of the bottle is covered with a layer of fine hairs that grow downwards, forcing insects to fall into the bottom of the bottle.
▲ The bottle body of the small sun bottle grass will have cracks, like a groove, which can maintain the water level in the bottle. Figure/Wikipedia
In Mount Kinabalu, Borneo, there is a species of Nepenthes dinoflagellates that grows with two serpent-like teeth that resemble hunting routines, secreting nectar to attract prey and cause it to fall into the bottle. In particular, there is a species of humpback ant that can walk freely on the wall of the bottle, enjoy the prey of Nepenthes, and even swim in digestive juices. Nepenthes diatus also provides a ring-shaped hole in the stem as their home, which can be described as a package. But there is no such thing as a free lunch, and ants need to be swept away from time to time, so that the ants' digested feces can be absorbed by Nepenthes dinoflagellates.
▲ There are two distinct "sharp teeth" on the lid of Nepenthes bientercus. Photo/Visual China
▲ Merrill Lynch Pig Cage Grassland is produced in the Philippines and is also a leader in the horticultural world. Photo/ Zeng Gang
As mentioned earlier, some carnivorous plants eat small vertebrates, such as Nepenthes Malay. It is one of the largest nepenthes in the genus Nepenthes, the surface of the lid of the pitcher will secrete honey day and night, the Baruga rat is attracted to it, it happily licks the honey juice, but because of its petite size, one is easy to fall into the cage if it is not careful, and if it cannot escape, it can only be buried here. Experts say that The " nepenthes " preys on small vertebrates is really unintentional willow cutting , and its purpose may only be excrement.
▲ The lid of Nepenthes Malaya is the largest in the genus Nepenthes, and there have been reports of drowning mountain tree shrews found in the pitchers of Nepenthes Malay. Graph/Network
Carnivorous plants as "vegetarian", but eat "meat", is indeed a strange branch of the plant kingdom, but it is precisely because of their peculiar shape that gardeners have been inspired to cultivate a variety of wonderful varieties.
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Wen 丨 Jiang Shanwen