Huge Spider Eaten By Venus Flytrap

In case you haven’t been told yet, nature is amazing! If we move aside all the natural wonders there are to see, like parks and waterfalls and the such, nature has so many other hidden treasures all around, they will surely leave you with your mouth hanging wide open.Show more

One such wonder of nature is the Venus Flytrap plant. Nintendo used them as inspiration for the Piranha plants in Super Mario for a very good reason. These plants are carnivorous! Not like, they will bite a finger off or swallow you whole, but they do feed off insects and spiders.

High-definition footage featuring a large spider being caught in a Venus Flytrap. The trap is closed shut if its trigger hairs are stimulated twice within an approximate 20 second range by such prey as insects or spiders.

If the prey is unable to escape, it will continue to stimulate the inner surface of the leaves, and this causes a further growth response that forces the edges of the lobes together, eventually sealing the trap hermetically and forming a "stomach" in which digestion occurs. Release of the digestive enzymes is controlled by the hormone jasmonic acid, the same hormone that triggers the release of toxins as an anti-herbivore defense mechanism in non-carnivorous plants.

This explains quite a lot about this amazing plant, doesn’t it? Feel free to share it with all your Super-Mario-loving friends!