Greeting everybody,
You
guys might be thinking, woah! What is SOTW? What happened to AOTW?
Don’t panic! We’ve decided to change the 'animal of the week' to
'species of the week' as it would allow us to appreciate not only
animals, but plants, bacteria and other organisms.
 |
| Image Source |
This week our
featured species is Dionaea Muscipula (Venus Flytrap), probably the most
famous of all the carnivorous plants. It is found only in the wet pine
savannas in North and South Carolina of United States.
The Venus
flytrap is a relatively small plant which looks like a rosette, but the
leaf blade consist of two parts:
1. a broad petiole - the “footstalk”,
and
2. a pair of terminal lobes which serves as the trap - held together
by the midrib.
The inner surface of each lobe consists of three
“trigger hairs”, which act as mechanosensors.
 |
| Image Source |
Mechanosensors are
things that respond to changes in mechanical force. When an insect
brushes against a hair, the bending hair triggers a tiny electrical
charge, and a second hair brush is needed within an interval of 0.75 to
40 seconds and SNAP! The insect then is liquified by the digestive
enzymes excreted by the plant and further absorbed.
This plant is
classified as ‘Vulnerable’ by the IUCN Red list, however there are
between 3-6 million plants in cultivation alone. The fascinating
features of the plant are admired by humans which have lead to illegal
collection of large quantities of the plant.
Hope you enjoyed our first official SOTW. Let us know what species fascinate you? Leave a comment below to ensure a species of your choice is in the next species of the week.
Carnivorous plants generally come from areas where their roots are unable to obtain enough nutrients from the soil, so they have developed a way of absorbing nutrients from animals, live or dead. Plants such as dionaea feed on small insects by trapping them and then digesting the contents of their bodies.
ReplyDeleteDionaea Muscipula Droseraceae Venus Flytrap Plant Care Propagation