Real Live Plants That Eat Insects

Venus Flytrap

• Venus Flytrap (Dionaea muscipula) uses a "snap trap" to catch insects. When an insect makes the mistake of walking around on the top of the plant's jaw-like leaves, the hairs on the leaves, which resemble thin, tiny teeth, sense the insect. Once that happens the insect can kiss the world goodbye. The trap quickly snaps and closes, trapping the insect inside. The insect experiences a slow death that can take from three to five days as the plant takes its time to thoroughly digest each morsel.

  The Venus flytrap has a seven-insect trap life, according to the Botanical Society of America. After that, the trap fades to black and dies. The lucky eighth insect escapes death on that particular flytrap leaf, but if it goes to another leaf that hasn't reached its seven-insect-limit, death is imminent.

Cobra Lily

• The Cobra lily (Darlingtonia californica) uses a sly and diabolically slick "pitfall trap" to snare insects. The sweet nectar on the hood-like leaf of the Cobra lily plant attracts unsuspecting insects. Thus begins the pitfall for the unfortunate insect. The insect hungers for more and goes looking inside the tubular pitcher-like Cobra lily flower. Pity the foolish insect for doing that. The hood on the leaf closes, trapping the insect inside, and the Cobra lily no longer wonders what's for dinner.

Corkscrew Plant

• Corkscrew plants are members of the Genlisea biological family and operate with a "lobster pot trap." The trap looks like a small pouch that can be as small as a pinhead and no bigger than a fingernail. The Corkscrew plant pouch is usually underwater, whether that's in a pond or in a boggy environment.

  The pouch works like a bladder and fills with fluid. All the insect has to do is bump into one of the tiny hairs on the bladder, and that signals the Corkscrew plant that it's time to go to work. The trap door opens at the end of the bladder pouch and the plant simultaneously empties out the old fluid that was in the bladder and refills the bladder pouch with new water and the insect too. The Corkscrew then emits digestive enzymes so it can consume the insect.

Bladderwort

• Bladderwort plants are members of the Utricularia genus. Utricularia are the only carnivorous plants that operate with a "suction trap." Bladderworts are hairy specimens of Ultricularia. However, unlike their fellow hairy, insect-eating corkscrew plant cousins, the hairs on the outside of the bladderwort plant are not sensitive. It's the hairs on the inside of the plant that insects have to worry about. When an insect touches an inner hair, that sets off a sudden-death trigger. In March 2011, Science News Magazine reported that a research team used high-speed underwater photography and recorded bladderworts sucking up prey in about half a millisecond.