DID YOU KNOW: MEAT-EATING PLANTS(CARNIVOROUS PLANTS) EXIST?

Hellooos from this side, how are you doing people? Now, if anyone knows me a bit, they know i'm a curious fella who wants to learn more about various stuff, even if that knowledge isn't necessarily gonna earn me a dinner platter, ...i just love learning new things, they excite and fulfill me somehow.

Not all that glitters is gold, Need i say more?

This week i chanced upon an article that partly read "Meat-eating plants are back"....this was one of those moments when i try to revisit my science lessons from school to check if i ever learned about such and dang, these plants never came into play. This only means my curiosity veins were coming to life, like they were under some kinda massive ignition. I wanted more and more i got!

This pitcher plant can trap and digest a big rat not only some tiny mice.

I don't don't want to be your biology/ecology teacher but how about i give you that trick that will keep your child from wandering away into the bushes/farm land against your consent? I even wonder why there was never a scary folklore of some kind about these plants told to me while i grew up!

What drives this carnivorous behavior though?
Carnivorous plants largely grow in areas with less soil, water logged areas like bogs and swamps where water and sunshine are readily available but with less of soil nutrients and this creates an immense need for nutrients like phosphorus, nitrogen and potassium which can luckily be derived from insect bodies, and more small arthropods like toads and frogs. Hence the adaptation to trapping, killing and digesting the 'meat'.

And there he goes, sliding in to his death!

How is this trapping/killing possible?
Now what bothered me most was how a plant, whose locomotive ability is as limited, could honestly trap an insect that flies miles and miles! It was not until i 'got down with it'
Here is how it all works;

• These plants produce a sweet smelling nectar that attracts insects onto them. Just like how white women are attracted to guys with dreadlocks haha, this is no offense, i have had countless confessions.
• On the surface of these leaves or whatever you may call them, is a sticky substance that gets the victim glued there, like never letting go.
• Inside the lid(for some plants like the pitchers) are downward pointing hairs that lead the victim further into the plant base. So literally its like a hell whole, you can only slide in but can't crawl out.

Oh dear, he is on his high way to the grave, RIP!

• At the base of the barrel is a pool of chemicals that DIGEST the insects. Now, here is the irony. The prey/victim isn't killed immediately, its trapped in these liquids/acids and may take up to 15 minutes to finally die and then the chemicals work on extracting the needed nutrients, a process that takes a very long time. It's a slow, violent eventual death, poor insects!
• Some eg the Yellow trumpet have a substance in their nectar that paralyzes any insect that eats it. One sip away and the insect tumbles right into the pool to be digested.

Caught up in the interlocking hell gate.

• Some eg the sundews use nectar to get insects to land on leaves covered with sensitive hairs with beads of sticky liquids.
• The Venus fly trap is probably the commonest around which apparently is put indoors to capture flies. It has an interlocking sort of ridge; a no escape plot.

Careful what you wish for, don't fall for the red lotus!

Common Characteristic (according to me)

90% of them have red or a patch of red on their leaves or stems.
One of my workmates told me, "that could be because of the blood they consume",....haha,...i died.

Now tell me this doesn't look like a trap to you!

Okay everybody, i would love to hear from you, are you familiar with these plants? Or have you heard a folklore concerning them?  The only one i read a few days ago about a carnivorous tree that ate human beings....found out the tree never existed neither did the writer.

I'm on the look out for these plants, if i land on any, i will update this post. If you know any, suggest please, i want to satisfy my curiosity, THANK YOU!