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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.
