Venus Fly Trap Research Paper

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Stevens, Chloe
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1/12/18
How Venus Fly Traps Catch Their Prey The venus flytrap is a unique plant that is known to be a carnivore. Many people are fascinated by this plant’s peculiar diet. While many people are surprised by this plant’s food, only few know how this strange plant attracts, kills, and digests their prey. To begin with, the upper and the lower leaf on the venus flytrap produces a sweet nectar, that is spread on the open traps of this plant, for attracting insects. Then, the insects smell the nectar and land on the plant’s leaves causing them to trigger the venus flytrap’s trap. At first the plant closes it’s trap lightly so that small insects, that the plant does not want to eat can escape, but once larger insects start to struggle, the leaves will clam together tightly over the plant’s meal. Substances produced by insects can cause, the trap’s leaves to be more tight when closed, because of that it only takes a few minutes for the traps make airtight seals. …show more content…

Each side of the trap has about three or four hairs that can sense insects, but even though the hair can sense them, an insect still must trip the same hair two times or trip to two hairs in 20 seconds. If not, the trap will not respond. The venus flytrap has this feature so it doesn’t snap shut on false alarms such as raindrops, or pieces of debris. When a hair is first triggered, it creates an electrical signal that travels on the trap, which much like an electrical signal that would travel through an animal cell. Than the energy is stored. When the insect trips, that will generate another electric signal. With the energy from both signals, it will require the trap to

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