Venus flytrap

The plant that eats insects

This plant eats insects! Its leaf looks like an open mouth. If a fly touches the little hairs inside twice — snap! — the leaf closes. Then the plant 'digests' the fly for 10 days. It can count: one touch won't close it — that might just be wind or rain.

The Venus flytrap (Dionaea muscipula) grows only in the bogs of North and South Carolina in the USA, within a 100 km radius. The soil is poor in nitrogen, so the plant gets nitrogen from insects. Each trap leaf has 3–6 sensitive hairs: two touches within 20 seconds change the cell pressure and the trap snaps shut in 0.1 seconds — one of the fastest movements in the plant world; after 5 touches it releases digestive enzymes. Each trap 'eats' 3–4 times and then dies. Darwin called it 'the most wonderful plant in the world'. It is vulnerable due to poaching and habitat loss.

Fun facts

• The flytrap can count to 5 — it closes at 2 and starts digesting at 5!
• The trap shuts in 0.1 seconds — 3 times faster than a blink.
• Darwin called it the most wonderful plant in the world.