When it comes to deadly predators, plants generally don't come to mind. After all, they're typically at the bottom of the food chain. But the Carolinas are home
to one vicious vegetable: the Venus flytrap. Using its famous trap,
it can catch prey faster than you can blink. But what happens next
inside a Venus flytrap? Funny thing about Venus flytraps, they don't usually trap flies. In fact, winged insects only
make up about 5% of their diet. Clyde Sorenson: We really
ought to be calling it the Carolina spider trap because that's really...it's
only found in the Carolinas, and, actually, a little
piece of the Carolinas, and it mostly eats spiders and ants. Narrator: But, of course,
regardless of species, that bug is going to have a bad day. It all starts when the
victim wanders into the trap, possibly lured by the bright-red
hue or fragrant scent. Or maybe they're just unlucky. Sorenson: We think the
spiders mostly just blunder. Narrator: The trap itself
looks like an open mouth. It's made of two pads attached to a hinge. Sorenson: On each one of those pads, there are usually three
little trigger hairs in a kind of a triangle. And those trigger hairs
are very, very sensitive to being disturbed. Narrator: The first time a
spider knocks into a hair, it sets off an electrical signal, sort of like the electrical
currents in your brain. That signal starts the countdown. If the bug escapes
within 20 to 30 seconds, nothing else happens. That way, the plant doesn't waste energy. But if the bug brushes
against another hair, snap! In just 100 milliseconds,
about four times faster than you can blink, the trap slams shut. Sorenson: Then, the trap rapidly
goes from convex to concave on each side, and the long little spikes
on the rims of the pads interlock to form kind of a cage. Narrator: Now, of course,
the spider isn't happy with this turn of events. So it tries to escape, which is exactly what the plant wants. The more the spider
struggles, the more it knocks into the trigger hairs, the
tighter the trap closes. And after an hour or two,
the trap locks completely. Cells on the edges of
the pad secrete moisture, which glues the edges together to form an airtight seal. Suddenly, that trap isn't a mouth anymore; it's a stomach. Digestive juices flood into
the closed compartment, dissolving the spider's soft organs, and the trap's lining sucks up that nutrient-rich slushy. After about a week, all
that's left is an empty husk, the spider's exoskeleton. Next, the trap reopens
and the husk tumbles out. The trap is now ready for its next meal. But bugs aren't the only
food the trap captures. Just like leaves on other plants, the trap's surface
contains a green pigment that lets it convert the
sun's energy into sugar through a process called photosynthesis. So then, why bother with the bugs? Well, Venus flytraps live
in acidic, waterlogged soil that doesn't have many nutrients. So, instead of slurping
up nitrogen and phosphorus through its roots, it needs
to borrow some from the bugs. That explains why it shares its home with other hungry carnivorous plants, like pitcher plants and sundews, which could only mean one thing: North Carolina is not a
fun place to be a bug.
