Carnivorous Plants and Their Traps | Plant Adaptations

Plants make their own food through photosynthesis, but photosynthesis alone is not enough. They also need other nutrients, and carnivorous plants take a more extreme approach than other plants when nutrients are hard to find. To survive, they have developed adaptations to trap prey, including pitfall traps, suction traps, and snap traps.

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Questions and Prompts for Educators

Check for Understanding

How do plants make their own food?
What is a carnivorous plant?

Take It Further

There are many kinds of carnivorous plant traps. Which type of plant trap do you think works best and why?
Act out how different carnivorous plants catch their prey.
- Pitcher Plant’s Pitfall Trap: Act out what it’s like to touch the slipperiest material you know. Then, open your arms above your head to make a tube or pitcher shape, like a pitcher plant’s, and imagine your arms are made of this slippery material. Now, imagine a bug sits on your hand and falls into your trap. It’s stuck and can’t get out! Act out how the bug tries to climb out of the slippery tube.
- Sundew’s Adhesive Trap: Extend your arms wide. Then, wiggle your fingers, imagining they are sticky like sundews. Now, picture an insect landing on your sticky finger. Slowly pull your hand in and form a fist around the insect, trapping your prey!
- Venus Flytrap’s Snap Trap: Open your arms wide. Wiggle your fingers as if they are hairs on the top of a Venus Flytrap. Imagine a fly gets close to them, then snap your arms together to trap it!
- Bladderwort’s Suction Trap: Crouch low or sit on the floor and imagine you are underwater. Hug your knees or make a small circle with your arms. Wiggle your fingers, mimicking the trap doors on bladderwort plants where critters enter. Now, imagine a critter enters your trap. Make a “swoosh!” or suction sound to trap it.