Wild Things: Mongooses, Bladderworts and More...
Fairy-wrens, wasps, and a nearly 3,000 year old big toe
- By T.A. Frail, Megan Gambino, Laura Helmuth, Jesse Rhodes and Sarah Zielinski
- Smithsonian magazine, April 2011
(Barry Rice / Sarracenia.com)
Tiny aquatic bladderworts are the world's fastest carnivorous plants, say researchers from the University of Grenoble and elsewhere. The plant takes its time getting ready to eat: it pumps water out of its trap for an hour to create a vacuum. Then when a small crustacean taps a trigger hair, a trapdoor opens and the plant sucks in water—and prey—within a millisecond. Once inside, the prey is dissolved by digestive juices.
Learn more about bladderworts at the Encyclopedia of Life.
Additional Sources
“A Mechanical Signal Biases Caste Development in a Social Wasp,” Sainath Suryanarayanan et al., Current Biology, January 20, 2011
“Ultra-fast underwater suction traps,” Olivier Vincent et al., Proceedings of the Royal Society B, February 16, 2011
“The art of medicine: The ancient origins of prosthetic medicine,” Jacqueline Finch., The Lancet, February 12, 2011
“Danger may enhance communication: predator calls alert females to male displays,” Emma I. Greig and Stephen Pruett-Jones, Behavioral Ecology, October 12, 2010
“Reproductive competition and the evolution of extreme birth synchrony in a cooperative mammal,” S. J. Hodge et al., Biology Letters, August 4, 2010
Comments (2)
Is it possible to retrieve a video advertised in a November 2006 issue of Smithsonian Magazine? "The trap-jaw ant in action" How does this compare with the Sea creature in the April 2011 issue of Smithsonian Magazine? (Sorry, someone in the family has moved our copy for the moment.)
Posted by Janet Rathmell on April 7,2011 | 03:32 PM
Awesome photo of it's work place
Posted by Toni Aull on March 24,2011 | 07:18 PM