If asked, what are the ferocious animals? Lions, tigers, black bears, sharks... Everyone can say a few, and every one of them can't afford to mess with us when we run into them in the wild. But have you ever thought that there are also "killers" in the plant world who are not easy to mess with? They seem ordinary, and even a little good-looking, but in fact, they hide a killing machine.
Legend has it that in Madagascar, there is a tree called Yatef, which is born with green python-like tentacles that can roll animals for their own food. Later, it was confirmed that Yatev was nothing more than a fictional story circulating in the 19th century, but like all good stories, it contained the germ of truth. In the 19th century, while exploring the slopes of Kinabalu in Borneo, naturalists discovered an equally eerie plant with many huge bottles. Some of the bottles contained rat carcasses that had been partially digested. The discovery caused a sensation as soon as it was published, sparking Darwin's enthusiasm for research. He conducted painstaking experiments and studies on all the plants he knew could capture animals. The existence of carnivorous plants was eventually demonstrated.
Don't think that our plants are all vegetarian. The first to appear is the thatched vegetable. It is distributed all over the world, and the varieties come in all shapes and forms, but they have one thing in common – the leaves are densely covered with transparent "small dewdrops". Therefore, some areas also call it felt moss.
Don't look at these dewdrops crystal clear, but for all kinds of small bugs are fatal. The mucus it secretes can attract and stick to small insects. At first, people thought it was just an accident. But Darwin's experiments proved that this was much more than an accident. On the leaves of the grass paste, he placed different substances, including milk, meat, paper, stones, and even urine, to observe the reaction of the grass paste. As a result, milk folds the tentacles of the grassy vegetables, and meat and urine cause the same reaction. But stone and paper will not.
Although picky eaters, they also react to urine and taste a bit heavy! Darwin's experiments showed that as long as it is a substance in the organism, it will attract the attention of the grassy vegetable. They are able to digest it slowly through the leaves, converting it into nutrients that they can absorb. Like animals, it is carnivorous. The sticky rat board invented by humans is the inspiration found in the grass paste, right?
However, why is it not like other plants, with water and fertilizer, preferring to eat meat? Originally, most carnivorous plants grew in puddles, swamps, and wetlands in the soil that lacked nutrients such as nitrogen. Most of the nitrogen in these places is hidden in insects. Plants kill insects in order to obtain enough fertilizer for growth. Therefore, once an insect approaches the grass, they will use the mucus to trap the insect, and then, then use the tentacles to firmly bind them, and finally dissolve and digest today's cuisine by the leaves. After watching this process, I suspected that the grass was an animal disguised as a plant!
There is also a plant that is better at hunting than thatched vegetables. In its natural state, the plant grows only in a small, moist pine forest in North Carolina, USA. It's venus flycatcher. The "weapon" of the flytrap belongs to the metamorphic leaves, which can be opened and closed like shells, and can complete the complex process of "seduction-triggering sensory mechanism-catching-digestion-absorption".
Specifically, the honey glands at the leaf margin of the flytrap secrete sap to lure the insect, while the outer leaves have many bristles. Any insect that is unfortunate enough to intrude triggers any of the bristles two or more times, and the trap will quickly shut down. After that, the more intensely the insect struggles, the tighter the leaves will be closed. The bristles of the leaf margins of flytraps are either jagged or slender like comb teeth, but without exception, they grow interlaced with the bristles on the other half of the leaves in order to bite each other and clamp tightly to the prey. Such a delicate and complex structure, casually sandwiching flies and mosquitoes, is not a problem.
In the summer, you need to buy a pot and put it at home.
The third type of insect catching skill is bottle grass and nepenthes. They rely on setting traps. Bottlegrass has evolved many times in different regions, including the Americas, Australia and Southeast Asia, and has grown the most sophisticated and complex insect traps. Most of them are unusually beautiful, with spots or mesh patterns, but behind the beauty hides a cruel death-killing device.
The lid of the bottle grass is attached to the sweet and seductive nectar, and the long hairs facing down cover the entire lid, making it difficult for insects to stand up once they enter. This tall and conspicuous bottle grass, like all brightly colored flowers, shows off nectar and attracts insects. The insects were busy eating nectar and didn't notice that it was getting harder and harder to balance until then...
Oh, how did the foot slip? At this time, the insect found itself in a dangerous situation, but could not escape from the smooth inner wall of the bottle. Soon, bottle grass secretes digestive enzymes to slowly dissolve its prey. This meal not only replenishes the consumption of nectar, but also has rations for the next few days. Fresh bugs, still delicious! There is also Nepenthes, whose predation mechanism is similar to that of bottle grass, and also relies on the lid to secrete fragrance and attract insects. When the insect slips into the bottle, it will be trapped by the liquid secreted at the bottom of the "bottle", or drowned or bored to death, and then the "foot slippery bottle" will decompose the nutrients and gradually digest and absorb them.
The largest known nepenthes can devour rats or even larger animals. Examples include Nepenthes macrophylla and Nepenthes Malay. Interestingly, however, their evolution is now moving closer and closer to human invention: the "toilet". Biologists have found that the giant Nepenthes has abandoned predatory rats and other animals over the years, and can survive on their feces alone.
Some people have analyzed that this is its honeydew with laxatives, when the tree shrew and other animals come to eat honey, while eating, while digesting, pulling down the rice has become the food of Nepenthes. Good plants are not good, they must be used as cesspools.
This, perhaps, was the animal's wit triumphing over the trap of Nepenthes. By natural selection, Nepenthes had to give up the habit of eating meat. Underwater, there are also ferocious plants , Tanuki algae. They are still very firm in their position, eating only living things. It is widespread in temperate regions of the Northern Hemisphere , and its catcher sacs are semi-flattened. When small organisms such as symbals, water fleas, and shrimp in the water are lured to eat sweet liquid, once the hairs of the tanuki algae are touched, the signal can be smoothly passed through to the live flap and the sac, and the insect trap rapidly swells to normal size, sucking the small organism into the sac, and the whole process takes less than a millisecond. Strength deduces what is called "what is in the bag".
Glands on the walls of small sacs secrete digestive juices that digest and absorb prey. After the captured small creatures have been digested and absorbed, the live flap of the sac is reopened, squeezing out the water in the sac along with the remnants of the prey, waiting for the prey that has thrown itself into the net to come again. The flowers are so cute that I didn't expect to be a "smiley killer".
These "killers" make bugs smell terrible with their beautiful appearance, special smell and the cold style of Morde's feelings. They are not often found in our lives, but some of our common plants can be used to repel mosquitoes or flies by emitting odors. Such as rosemary, mint, lavender, if you encounter any nasty mosquitoes in life, it is a good choice to raise them.