Some plants trap insects and suck the goodness out of their bodies. Insects go to sundews or flytraps to look for food. When they do, they may be held by sticky hairs or trapped by strong leaves that snap shut like jaws!
This plant feeds on tasty insects.
This plant catches insects on its sticky leaves. Other plants catch insects by looking and smelling good. Pitcher plants do this. The insect goes to the pitcher plant to feed on the nectar. Once inside the plant’s hollow leaf, it cannot climb out because the walls are slippery. It dies in the liquid at the bottom, dissolves and becomes plant food.
Insects stick to the hairs on sundew plants.
This sundew plant oozes sticky juice onto the insect. The insect isn’t strong enough to escape. Its body turns to liquid and the plant absorbs the insect through its leaves!
This Venus flytrap has a fly in its jaws.
This fly has been tricked into stepping onto the leaf of a Venus flytrap while it was searching for nectar. The leafy jaws snap shut when anything touches the hairs. The Venus flytrap kills its victims using a liquid that turns the fly’s body into juice. It can take the flytrap two weeks to digest one fly.