Weird and wonderful members of the plant kingdom - animal eating plants

Carnivorous plants derive some or most of their nutrients from trapping and consuming animals, but most trap insects and other creepy crawlies. Such plants usually grow in places where the soil is thin or poor in nutrients like acidic bogs and rock outcroppings. True carnivorousness is thought to have evolved in at least ten separate plant families, so it's a widespread adaptation to difficult conditions.

There are five basic trapping mechanisms in carnivorous plants.

• Pitfall traps, such as pitcher plants, which trap their victim in a rolled leaf or specially shaped flower containing a pool of digestive enzymes or bacteria. Sort of like a swimming pool and stomach in one!
• Flypaper traps use a sticky mucilage to glue down their prey, and then dissolve it with a kind of digestive dew with emerges from the leaf
• Snap traps utilize rapid leaf movements to close upon the unwary insect.
• Bladder traps suck in prey with a bladder that generates an internal vacuum, this obviously only works for very small insects!
• Lobster-pot traps force prey to move towards a digestive organ with inward pointing hairs, they can't climb back over the hairs so they are trapped in a chamber that then fills with digestive juices.

The only two active snap traps - the Venus flytrap and the waterwheel plant both have trapping mechanisms that have been described as 'mouse traps' or 'man traps', based on their shape and rapid movement. The waterwheel is aquatic, and specialises in catching small invertebrates while the Venus flytrap is land-based and catches a variety of arthropods, including spiders.

In terms of sheer bulk, the largest carnivorous plants are in the genus Nepenthes, whose large vines can grow up to ten meters long. Plants in this genus also have traps that have evolved to capture prey, including creatures as large as frogs and small birds. The fastest-acting trap belongs to the underwater plants in the genus Utricularia, which suck prey into bladders in times as short as 1/30 of a second.

Carnivorous plant photograph by mshades, used under a creative commons attribution licence