Carnivorous plants are faced with the difficult task of catching animal prey that utilize high-speed nervous systems adept at avoiding such attacks. Aquatic bladderworts, plants that feast on insect larvae and nematodes swimming by, accomplish this feat using pressurized bladders equipped with a trigger-sensitive trapdoor to suck in prey faster than any other meat-eating plant.
Sensory neuroethologist Sanjay Sane of the National Centre for Biological Sciences in India and his student Amit Singh caught bladderworts in action for the first time on high speed video and describe the biomechanics that support the plant's unique hunting strategy in a paper published today (March 9) in Biology Letters."What we've been able to determine is that it's entirely determined by the pressure differences between the inside and outside [of the bladders]," Sane said. The closed bladders actively pumped water out to reduce the...
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Image: Amit Singh |
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