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The information in this episode is meant for interest only. The MCP and AI cannot be held responsible for any injury caused by the misuse of any of the plants mentioned in this episode. Please be responsible. Humans are fascinated by gore and violence, but even more so than mysterious and unsolved.
Interest in these disturbing and unpleasant subjects is called morbid curiosity, and it has gripped millions of people throughout the ages. I am one of those people. My name is Hallie, and this is the Morbid Curiosity Podcast. Previously in our Plants series, we discussed toxic plants that can cause death through poisoning.
This is usually due to the presence of alkaloids, organic compounds that have a pronounced physiological effect on humans. We then discussed plants that have psychoactive properties and have been used by humans for both religious and medical purposes since before written history. In this fourth installment, we discussed carnivorous plants, plants that capture and consume living prey in order to sustain themselves. We'll discuss how these plants developed, where they thrive, and some of the history of their study and cultivation.
After the break, we'll go into detail on different trap types and how you might be able to grow your own carnivorous plants. Carnivorous plants are defined as a plant that traps prey, digests it in some way, and then absorbs the nutrients from that prey. They have special adaptations such as sticky leaves, little hairs that trigger the leaves to snap shut when disturbed, or pictures full of sweet smelling liquid that are easy to get into, but difficult to escape. Some even have paralyzing alkaloids mixed into that sweet liquid to make prey even easier to capture.
Most regular plants get their nutrients through photosynthesis, the process by which sunlight, water and carbon dioxide are used to create oxygen and energy for the plant in the form of sugar. Many carnivorous plants do photosynthesize, but aren't dependent on it like regular plants. Some hardly photosynthesize, while others use both photosynthesis and carnivory depending on what nutrients are available. There are about 580 species of carnivorous plants spread over five different taxonomic orders.
Carnivorous plants are found on all continents of the world, except Antarctica. Most grow in nutrient-poor soils in wet, light-rich locations such as bogs, wetlands and marshes. The ability to trap prey and absorb nutrients from that prey helps them thrive without much competition from photosynthesizing plants in the same area. Despite this, they are quite rare, and many are on the endangered species list due to habitat loss, climate change and illegal collection.
Despite their need to trap prey, Carnivorous plants also depend on insects for pollination to reproduce. While many carnivorous plants reproduce through self-pollination, called asexual reproduction, some still rely on insects to reproduce, so how do they tell the difference between pollinators and prey? We actually know very little about the interaction between Carnivorous plants and their pollinators, especially in the wild, as most research on Carnivorous plants is done in greenhouses. There's a lot more research to be done on their habitats and their pollinators.
The fact of the matter is, it's not evolutionarily advantageous to eat one's pollinators, so the plants must have a way to distinguish their flowers from their traps in order to attract the right type of insect for that part of the plant. So far, three basic mechanisms have been documented in Carnivorous plants for separating pollinators and prey. One is spatial separation. The flowers are high above the ground to attract flying pollinators, while the traps are close to the ground to attract crawling insects.
The second is separation, where the flowers bloom and attract pollinators first, then the plant develops traps to attract prey. Lastly, the plants may have different ways of attracting insects. The flowers rely on pollen or nectar to attract pollinators, while traps give off a certain scent or color pattern to attract a different type of insect as prey. Many Carnivorous plants have also developed symbiotic and semi-symmiotic relationships with certain animals.
A symbiotic relationship is any type of close, long-term biological interaction between two biological organisms of different species. There are three types of symbiotic relationships, mutualistic where both species benefit, commensalistic where one species benefits and the other is not harmed, and parasitic where one species benefits to the detriment of the other. Some examples are diving ants who consume prey from pitcher plants, but also defend them from certain herbivores. Spiders who weave their webs near plant traps, benefiting from the scent and color of the plant to catch their own prey, and tree frogs that sometimes eat prey caught in certain pitcher plants.
One of the first people to study Carnivorous plants in detail was Charles Darwin. Darwin spent 16 years researching and cultivating Carnivorous plants in his greenhouse in Kent, England. He published his book, Insectivorous Plants in 1875. He affectionately called Venus Flytraps the most wonderful plants in the world and correctly determined that Carnivory had evolved independently several times in different species of plants, a phenomenon called convergent evolution.
This means that Carnivorous plants do not all come from one ancestor. They developed on their own, likely in response to changes in the environment they grew in. Experiments surrounding the mechanics of how trap plants work were undertaken in 1876 by Sir John Burden Sanderson and F.J.M. Page, Charles Darwin's son Francis did his own work on Carnivorous plants.
He revised his father's book and published it in 1889. With the development of electron microscopy, the sub-cellular activity of the digestion process in plants was revealed. With the publishing of The Carnivorous Plants by Barry E. Juniper, Richard Robbins and Daniel M.
Joel in 1989, digestive glands, mutualistic interactions with insects and methods of attracting insects were revealed. The convergent evolution theory for the origins of Carnivory in plants was confirmed recently through genome sequencing research. Modern technology was necessary to confirm this theory because the fossil record for Carnivorous plants is very sparse as most of them don't have features that fossilize well, like bark or wood. The ability to study these plants at a molecular level also brought about the understanding of how the traps are sprung.
It's now thought that Carnivorous plants repurposed and co-opted existing genes and physiology of flowering plants to evolve their trapping mechanisms. Modern botanists believe the development of hairy leaves was the first step toward Carnivorous adaptations. These hairs sometimes trapped water droplets, which in turn trapped and suffocated insect prey that then decayed, providing nutrients for the plant. This then evolved into trigger hairs, sticky leaves and fluid-filled pitfall traps we see today.
Before I go into detail about all the types of traps and how they work, please consider becoming a patron of the MCP on Patreon. For just $2 a month, you'll get double the episodes and they'll be free of ads. You can still listen on your favorite apps as well. If you're able to pay a bit more, you'll get access to patron-only exclusives like outtakes, bibliographies, quizzes and guided meditations.
Go to bit.ly slash morbidpatron. That's b-i-t dot l-y slash morbidpatron to sign up. You'll have our eternal gratitude. There are two ways in which Carnivorous plants activate the traps they use.
Some of them are active traps and others are passive. Active traps require stimulus and energy to function. Movement triggers certain actions that must happen for the trap to capture prey. These actions include molecular movement as well as larger movement of leaves.
Some of these movements take only seconds while others can take a whole day. Passive traps are always set and continuously capture prey. The plant doesn't have to do anything except wait for insects to become trapped. The pitfall trap is a passive trap and one of the big five Carnivorous plant types.
Most plants that employ this type of trap are called pitcher plants as they resemble a jug or pitcher. There are several families of plants that utilize pitfall traps. Nepenthasia has only one genus, Nepenthes, but there are over 150 types of Nepenthes. The colloquial name for this genus is Old World Pitcher Plants as they are found in the tropics of India, Asia, and Philippines.
Another nickname is Monkey Cups as it was once believed that monkeys drink water from them. They're generally found on mountain slopes and their main prey is insects, though some catch small mammals or frogs. They are generally climbing vines, but also grow along the ground. Nepenthes utilize pitchers that usually dangle from thin tendrils at the ends of the leaves.
The lip of the trap called the peristome is colorful in order to attract prey and slippery to capture them. The prey falls down into the pitcher and can't climb back out due to a waxy coating on the inside. The bottom of the pitcher is full of a fluid called mucilage, which mimics water, but is actually a sweet smelling liquid that both drowns prey and digests it. Some pitcher plants have little lids that protect the pitcher from rainwater, which might dilute the mucilage.
Some of these lids also have nectar glands to help attract prey. Sarah Senea say are the New World Pitcher Plants and include three genera. They're mostly ground dwelling and their pitchers are formed from whole leaves. One genus, Helium fora, is found mostly in South America in areas with high rainfall.
The other two genera are found in North America. Sarah Senea are known as trumpet pitchers and are found on the Eastern Seaboard in Texas, around the Great Lakes and in Canada. California hosts a whole genus of its own, Darlantonia, which are colloquially known as cobra plants as they resemble cobras about to attack. The Cephalotus, also known as the Albany pitcher plant or Australian pitcher plant, is a genus with only one species, Cephalotus follicularis.
This pitcher plant only grows in the PD swamps of Southwestern Australia. It resembles other pitcher plants with lids, but the outside and inside are coated with small hairs, which point down into the plant, making it difficult for prey to climb out. The lid, or operculum, has translucent cells that resemble patches of blue sky, which confuse the prey into thinking there is no lid. In a surprising show of symbiosis, the larva of bodices ambulance, an ant-like wingless fly, develop inside the pitchers.
While the larva have never been found anywhere else, the adult flies are generally found in drier areas, suggesting the adults travel long distances on foot to lay their eggs in the plant. Bromeliaceae or Bromeliads are a family of flowering plants usually found in tropical areas. This family includes a huge variety of species from Spanish moss to pineapples. Several species are known or suspected to be carnivorous.
One suspect is brachina reducta, which is native to Northern South America. The tightly overlapping leaves of this plant form a water storage cup, which has a waxy coating on the inside. The wax reflects ultraviolet light, which protects the plant and also attracts insects. The liquid in the cup is also sweetly fragrant and effectively drowns any insects that land in it.
There is still some debate whether B reducta is a truly carnivorous plant, despite all its features pointing to a pitfall trap species. Catopsis bertaroneana, also known as the powdery strap air plant, or the lantern of the forest, is another suspected carnivorous bromeliad. These are native to Southern Florida and Brazil. The leaves overlap tightly to form a tube-like structure, which catches rainwater, organic debris, and insects, which then break down into nutrients and are absorbed by the plant.
However, the plant does not produce any enzymes that digest insects that may fall into the tube, so it's still debatable if it's a true carnivorous plant. Another type of passive trap is the adhesive or fly paper trap. This is one of the simplest mechanisms used by carnivorous plants. These traps have specialized glands that secrete a sticky mucilage that catches small insects that land or step on it.
Some of the glands look like tiny hairs, with droplets of water on their points. Others have leaves with tentacle-like projections that snag passing insects with sticky mucilage. The leaf then secretes digestive enzymes and breaks down the prey right on the leaf. One of the most well-known of these is the sundew or drosera genus.
There are around 200 species of drosera and all are carnivorous. Drosera can be found on every continent of the world and generally grow in damp, nutrient-poor soils. Because they grow in such poor soil, many of them have underdeveloped root systems, as they aren't used to absorbing nutrients that way. An interesting quality of the sundew is its ability to move its stalks when they come into contact with prey.
They'll bend toward the center of the leaf in order to attach as many stalks to the prey as possible. They're so sensitive that the tiny legs of a net will set them moving. The speed at which the stalks move varies between species, but some, such as drosera glandular gira, enclose prey in under a second. Others take around half an hour to fully enclose trapped prey.
This movement is not entirely understood yet, but is likely a combination of chemical and mechanical movement within the leaves. A biochemist would be able to explain it better, but it has something to do with physical stimulus, causing movement of acids and ions in and out of the cells of the leaf, which then cause it to bend. Sundews are amazing and look like plants from an alien world. I highly suggest googling them for some pictures.
They're really weird and wonderful. Fun fact, sundews were referred to in European medical writings from the 12th century to 1965 as a treatment for cough, asthma, stomach ulcers, and even as aphrodisiacs. There is no medical basis for these claims. The mucilage they produce, however, is currently being studied for use in tissue recovery.
For example, spreading it on a surgical implant may improve the rate of recovery from the implantation procedure. Pretty fascinating stuff. Another genus of adhesive traps is penguicula, also known as butterworts. These plants have sticky leaves that act like fly paper, where an insect lands on them and becomes stuck.
Butterworts grow in many environments, both tropical and temperate. Some grow both normal and sticky leaves depending on the season, as they effectively hibernate during the winter. When not hibernating, two types of glands work to catch prey. One called the peduncular gland creates mucilage on the surface of the leaf, often mimicking water droplets.
Once an insect becomes stuck in the mucilage, cesial glands release digestive enzymes, which break down the organic components of the insect, usually leaving only its exoskeleton behind on the surface of the leaf. One of the most famous carnivorous plants, the Venus flytrap, employs an active trap known as a snap trap to capture prey. The name snap trap basically explains what this trap does. Prey moves into the trap, brushes against the trigger hairs, and the trap very quickly encloses the prey.
Generally, the specialized leaves that make up the two halves of the trap are flat before they are triggered. The two halves then come together to enclose prey once the trap is sprung. The Venus flytrap works by using specialized cells that expand and contract when stimulated by the vibrations of movement. The cells on the underside of the leaf or the outside of the trap rapidly expand when the tricombs or trigger hairs in the trap are triggered.
This causes the top of the leaf to bend into a cup shape and come together. This usually happens in under a second. The trap then slowly seals and fills with enzymatic mucilage for digestion. This can take up to 10 days, at the end of which the trap opens and the exoskeleton of the insect falls out.
Two hairs must be triggered within a few seconds of one another for the trap to close. This safety measure ensures that the plant doesn't spend energy on insects that it won't likely catch or leaves that fall onto it. The trigger hairs are also sensitive to heat and will close to protect itself from hot weather or forest fires. The hairs are spaced far apart so that smaller prey can escape as they aren't worth the energy that would be spent by the plant in digesting them.
However, the more movement within the trap, the tighter it closes. These traps sit at the end of a longer, flat, stem-like projection called a petiol that is used for photosynthesis when the need arises. These days, venous fly traps are rare in the wild and are cultivated mostly as houseplants. Since 1979, the wild population has decreased by 93 percent, so they're considered a vulnerable species.
Habitat loss is the main reason for this, but also forest fire suppression, as venous fly traps thrive in the environments left behind after forest fires. A lesser-known plant that utilizes the snap trap is Aldro Vonda vesiculosa, also known as the water wheel plant. This water plant captures small aquatic creatures using traps that are quite similar to the venous fly trap, but smaller and underwater. The trap is triggered similarly as well, with movement on trigger hairs causing the two lobes of the trap to shut.
It takes mere milliseconds for this trap to close, making it one of the fastest moving plants in the world. It's also a survivor. When it begins to get cold, a vesiculosa forms turions, small, non-carnivorous leaves on shortened stems, which resemble a tight bud. This bud is heavy and therefore breaks off the mother plant and sinks to the bottom of the water, where temperatures are stable and warmer.
There, it can withstand temperatures as low as negative 15 degrees Celsius or 5 degrees Fahrenheit. When the water temperature rises above 12 to 15 degrees Celsius or 54 to 59 degrees Fahrenheit, the turions reduce their density and float to the top of the water, where they germinate and resume growth. A vesiculosa was once one of the most widely distributed carnivorous plants, but has become increasingly rare in the wild. In the USA, the plant was introduced in the 1970s as a backyard pond plant and may soon be labeled as an invasive species, due to massive predation on aquatic vertebrates.
Another carnivorous plant that depends on water is the genus Uticularia, commonly called bladderward plants. It's been argued that the suction trap bladderworts utilize is one of the most complex plant leaves on the planet. These active traps are made up of very intricate shapes and specialized cells, which together create a negative pressure inside the trap, that, when triggered by movement, acts as a vacuum to suck up prey into the bladder. Once inside, the prey is digested by mucilage.
The trap then re-arms itself by bending in on itself and storing potential energy like a spring. Trigger hairs just outside the bladder act as a lever, and when disturbed, trigger the mouth of the trap to separate and a suction to activate. Once filled with water, the mouth seals and digestive secretions go to work, breaking down the prey over hours to days. The action of the trap, on the other hand, takes milliseconds.
Often, the bladder can capture multiple prey at once, as it only takes around 30 minutes to re-arm itself. Some species have quite small traps, but Uticularia vulgaris, the common bladderwort, has a large bladder trap about the size of a broad bean that can capture more substantial prey, such as water fleas, all the way up to small tadpoles. These plants can be found in moist and watery environments, usually tropical, but not always. Land species of Uticularia are often found alongside other carnivorous plants, such as drosera.
The last type of carnivorous plant trap I'll talk about are lobster traps. A lobster trap, or lobster pot, has an entrance that lobsters can easily find and enter, but are difficult to exit. Carnivorous plants make use of this passive trap design as well. The prey enters the trap by pushing past inward pointing hairs.
Once inside the trap, they cannot get back out past the hairs. The best examples of the lobster trap are found in the genus Genlicia, or the corkscrew plants. Corkscrew plants are found in wet or semi-aquatic environments in Africa and Central and South America. They don't have roots, but they do have a series of whitish tubes that they use to anchor themselves and to catch prey.
These are Y-shaped, with the arms of the Y being similar in shape to a corkscrew. The stem of the Y is a tube that contains hairs that point inward towards the arms of the Y. Prey, swim up the stem, and get caught in the corkscrew-shaped arms, which are full of digestive enzymes. Some species of Darlingtonia and Saracenia combine elements of the lobster trap and the pitfall trap, having little hairs on the inside of the cup to prevent insects from escaping.
Another combination trap is Drosera glandular gara, or the scarlet sundew of Australia, which utilizes both adhesive and snap trap elements. When triggered, snap tentacles on the outside of the leaves catapult prey onto sticky glue tentacles at the center of the leaves. These tentacles slowly draw the prey into a concave depression in the leaf, where digestion occurs. This trap mechanism is nicknamed the catapult flypaper trap.
Carnivorous plants are super cool. You may be wondering if you can get one for yourself, and the answer is yes. Are they easy to care for? Somewhat?
Do you have to feed them insects? Yes. Carnivorous plants love a swampy environment filled with moss and moisture, and won't grow in commercial potting mix or soil. The ideal environment for a carnivorous plant is stagnant moss, but that can be hard to find.
Pete moss is a good alternative, as is milled and ground coconut fiber. Many carnivorous plants are more suitable to outdoor cultivation, although some will survive indoors. The best carnivorous plant for beginners is the Venus flytrap. It's still more work than a regular house plant, as you need to mimic the conditions of the plant's natural swamp habitat.
Venus flytraps require direct sunlight and special water. Tap water, distilled water, and filtered water don't have the right minerals to sustain them. They need rainwater. You'll also need to water a Venus flytrap from the bottom by placing the pot in a tray or dish, and then watering the dish so the roots can suck up the water.
To keep your flytrap alive more than one growing season, it needs to go dormant in the winter, usually November through February in the northern hemisphere. To do this, keep the flytrap in a cold, but not freezing temperature for those months. These plants are voracious eaters. If your carnivorous plants aren't getting enough insects to satisfy their needs, a monthly feeding is a good idea.
For flytraps, freeze-dried mealworms, bloodworms, and crickets are recommended, but they'll need to be rehydrated with a few drops of water before feeding. Make sure not to stimulate the trap unless you're feeding the flytrap, as it takes a lot of energy to snap that trap shot. The best choice for indoor growing is a sundew species called drosera capensis. Thanks to its large range, sundews are hardy and can get by on less than ideal conditions.
Lots of sunlight, pure water, acidic soil, and periodic feeding are still required, but it doesn't need to go dormant for the winter. Most people think of plants as passive observers that exist in the background. Some are dangerous if consumed, but for the most part, they don't impact other living things, other than as a food source. The fact that some plants trap and consume prey changes that view of plants into something more active, more impactful.
These plants found a way to survive in environments that other plants can't, in a way that other plants can't. They turned adversity into advantage, and part of that is killing other living creatures, which is why carnivorous plants spark our morbid curiosity. The Morbid Curiosity Podcast is produced by H. Lloyd.
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My name is Hallie, and until next time, thanks for listening.