Venus Flytrap
Photo credit: © Mlane | Dreamstime.com
Snappy Venus Flytraps
Have you ever heard of a movie star that’s a plant?
Meet Audrey! She was the main character in a movie called The Little Shop
of Horrors. She was a gigantic Venus flytrap. Audrey had a big appetite. The
monster plant would cry to her owner, “Feed me, Seymour!” And Audrey
was picky about what she ate. Her favorite meal? People.
The Venus flytrap is a real plant. But don’t worry. It’s small, not huge.
And it doesn’t really eat people. It dines on insects and spiders. Still, don’t
try sticking your finger in a flytrap. It won’t hurt you. But you could hurt
or kill the plant.
Venus flytraps grow in bogs and damp, mossy areas in North and South
Carolina. The dirt in these bogs doesn’t have enough nitrogen to keep the
plant healthy. So the flytrap developed its taste for insects and spiders. They
give the plant the nitrogen it needs. The Venus flytrap also gets protein
from these meals.
The Venus flytrap catches its supper with special pairs of hinged leaves.
They look like sets of jaws, or very small bear traps. The edges of the leaves
have long spikes. There are tiny hairs on the leaves of each trap. When
a curious insect wanders along a leaf, it brushes against these hairs. The
contact triggers the trap. The leaves clamp together. They snap shut faster
than you can snap your fingers. Chomp!
It takes the plant about ten days to
digest its unlucky prey. The flytrap makes
chemicals that dissolve the trapped bug or
spider. The plant absorbs nutrients from the
prey’s body.
The Venus flytrap gets its name from
Venus, the Roman goddess of love. This
might sound strange. After all, this toothy
plant doesn’t seem very loving. On the other
hand, you could say that it really loves bugs.
From Building Character with True Stories from Nature by Barbara A. Lewis, copyright © 2012. Free Spirit Publishing Inc., Minneapolis, MN; 800-735-7323; www.freespirit.com.
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