February 6, 2012
Isn’t this a pretty yellow flower, floating in a puddle? Don’t let your eyes fool you. This is a carnivorous (meat-eating) plant, and scientists think it is one of the fastest bug-eating plants on Earth!
Bladderworts eat tiny bugs (smaller than a flea) that live in the water. The plants have bladders (tiny, closed bags) with tiny hairs near the opening of the bag. When a micoscopic bug swims by and brushes against the hairs, the mouth of the bladder pops open, sucks in a gulp of water, and snaps shut, trapping the bug inside!
Until recently, we didn’t have a way to judge just how quickly this happens. But recently, French and German scientists used high speed cameras to capture the ambush, and discovered that it happens in a millisecond (there are one thousand milliseconds in one second).
That makes the Bladderwort one of the fastest plants in the pond. And it looks so innocent!
Posted by: Seymour Simon
