Venus flytraps are quick and deadly with their prey | ECOVIEWS

Q. I have heard that it is illegal to remove the little carnivorous plants called Venus flytraps from the wild. Are they protected by state wildlife agencies or the Endangered Species Act?

A. Last year, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service “determined that the species does not meet the definition of threatened or endangered . . . under the Endangered Species Act.”

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However, the agency identified a plethora of human-related threats, the primary one being habitat loss from conversion to agriculture, silviculture and development. The suppression of natural fires leads to encroachment by shrubs and trees. Ditching, road maintenance and draining wetlands are additional assaults on the plant’s fragile environment.

Poaching is also a serious problem. Despite the lack of federal regulations, both Carolinas have some protections in place for the little plants. According to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, “Poaching Venus flytrap plants became a felony in North Carolina in 2014.” In South Carolina it is “unlawful” to collect or destroy them on public lands.

Keith Bradley of the South Carolina Department of Natural Resources notes that on private lands the plants may only be taken with the owner’s consent.

Named for the Roman goddess of beauty, Venus flytraps are native to the United States. They occur naturally only in longleaf pine savannas of North and South Carolina in flat terrain that has moist soil for most of the year.

In “Insectivorous Plants” (1875) Charles Darwin said of the Venus flytrap, “From the rapidity and force of its movements, [this plant] is one of the most wonderful in the world.” The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service described it as “one of the most widely recognized carnivorous plant species on Earth.”

Throughout the world a variety of plants capture and consume insects and other small critters. Most carnivorous plants live in highly acidic wetland habitats with nutrient-poor soils. Capturing and digesting an unwary insect is one way to compensate for the lack of essential vitamins and minerals that plants living in rich soil habitats take up through their roots.

But Venus flytraps do not passively capture insects the way pitcher plants do, nor slowly entrap them with sticky tentacles like sundews. These small killers waste no time. Modified leaves form two halves of a trap that resembles a large, split butter bean; sharp spines encircle the leaves. The scent from nectar glands on the open leaf attracts flies, beetles and other animals.

When a bug lands on a leaf and hits one of the hair triggers, the two halves of the trap slam shut. As Darwin put it, “When the lobes close, they inter-lock like the teeth of a rat-trap.” The small plant then secretes digestive juices and begins to absorb the prey, a process that may take hours or days.

In addition to its unusual and intriguing natural history, the Venus flytrap has a message of encouragement for future scientists: much remains to be learned about even the most obvious plants and animals.

As recently as 2018 E. Youngsteadt, C.E. Sorenson (North Carolina State University) and colleagues published a scientific paper in American Naturalist titled “Venus Flytrap Rarely Traps Its Pollinators.” Their key point was that the numerous kinds of invertebrates falling prey to the snapping jaws of these crafty little plants “overlapped very little” with the types of insects that pollinated them by visiting the flowers. Equally noteworthy to me was this statement, “We provide the first report of the flower-visiting community of the Venus flytrap.”

Think about that. Darwin and other scientists studied Venus flytraps for well over a century without determining what insects pollinated them.

The discovery that a carnivorous plant does not generally snare the animals it depends on for cross-pollination tells a story of just how intricate the workings of the natural world can be.

Opportunities abound every day for scientists to make new and exciting discoveries about the plants and animals with which we share our world.

Whit Gibbons is professor of zoology and senior biologist at the University of Georgia’s Savannah River Ecology Laboratory. If you have an environmental question or comment, email ecoviews@gmail.com.

This article originally appeared on The Tuscaloosa News: Venus flytraps are quick and deadly with their prey | ECOVIEWS