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Carnivorous Plant Facts & Worksheets

Carnivorous Plant is also known as insectivorous plants or plant-eating insects.

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Plants are deemed carnivorous if they possess these five characteristics: trap prey to catch it; kill the captive victim; digest the caught prey; take nutrients from prey that has been killed and digested; and lastly use those nutrients to grow and develop. Other characteristics may include prey attraction and retention.

See the fact file below for more information on Carnivorous Plant, or you can download our 40-page Carnivorous Plant worksheet pack to utilize within the classroom or home environment.

Key Facts & Information

DEFINITION

  • Carnivorous plants consume animals or protozoans, most typically insects and other arthropods, for part or all of their nourishment.
  • Carnivorous plants attract, capture, and digest animals to obtain nutrients. Approximately 630 species of carnivorous plants are now known to science.
  • Although most meat-eating plants ingest insects, bigger plants may digest reptiles and small animals. Smaller carnivorous plants feed single-celled species (such as bacteria and protozoa), whereas watery plants consume crustaceans, mosquito larvae, and tiny fish.

HABITATS

  • Carnivorous plants live in a variety of habitats. However, most of them are moist, low-nutrient environments such as bogs, swamps, water bodies, watercourses, woods, and sandy or rocky areas. Carnivorous plants can be found on every continent except Antarctica, and several species, including sundews,  butterworts, and bladderworts, are endemic to the UK.
  • The common butterwort (Pinguicula Vulgaris) thrives in and on bogs, fens, wet heaths, and moors throughout the UK. To keep its prey safe, this plant uses sticky mucilage on the leaf surface. Purple blooms appear on top of a tall stalk to keep pollinators away from its carnivorous leaves.
  • Attenborough’s pitcher plant (Nepenthes Attenborough) is highly endangered and can only be found at the peak of Mount Victoria on the Philippine island of Palawan. It is one of the largest carnivorous plants, growing 1.5 meters tall and producing pitchers 30 centimeters in diameter, and can devour rodents.

MAJOR FAMILIES

  • For years, researchers have been trying to piece together the tale of carnivorous plant evolution and ecology. Carnivorous habits of several genera were proven by Charles Darwin. Carnivory has been seen in at least nine plant families and 600 different species.
  • Below are the different types or groups of carnivorous plants under different kingdoms and orders. Their names are followed by the Angiosperm Phylogeny Group II (1993). 

Eudicots, Basal Eudicots

  • Order: Caryophyllales
  • Family: Nepenthaceae
  • Genus: Nepenthes
  • It is a tropical pitcher plant or monkey cup. 
  • There are currently 90 recognized species in Australia, Madagascar, Papua New Guinea, Seychelles, Southeast Asia, and Sri Lanka. 
  • Nepenthes, a Southeast Asian and Australian native, grows pitchers (cups) that dangle from trees. Its pitcher is similar to that of the North American pitcher plant in that it traps its prey in a pool of water.  
  • It has a peculiar leaf that begins as a regular leaf, then grows a tendril at its tip, and eventually forms an astonishing pitcher at tendril’s tip. 
  • It gets strength by wrapping the tendril around another plant.
  • Family: Drosophyllaceae
  • Genus: Drosophyllum
  • It is also known as dewy pine or Portuguese sundew. 
  • The species lives along the coasts of northern Morocco, Portugal, and southwest Spain. 
  • Drosophyllum filiformis is a carnivorous shrub that grows to a height of 40-50 cm (maximum 150 cm). The stems are 5-15 mm thick and crawl along the ground as they grow taller.
  • Each apical rosette usually has ten or more thin, needle-like, triangular-shaped leaves. The leaves are typically 10-25 cm long and 2.5 mm wide.
  • Family: Droseraceae
  • Genus: Drosera
  • They are also known as sundew. There are now 152 recognized species that live in temperate and tropical regions across the world.
  • Sundews are found not just in bogs but also on sandy banks and other mineral soils low in organic nitrogen and phosphorus. 
  • Drosera (sundew), the master of sticky flypaper, is a slower trap than the one in a Venus flytrap. 
  • The sundew, on the other hand, traps its food with its sticky, glandular hairs before gently rolling up the edges of the leaf.
  • Family: Dioncophyllaceae
  • Genus: Triphyophyllum
  • West African rainforest ecosystems are home to this species. It can be found in Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Ivory Coast. 
  • Family: Droseraceae 
  • Genus: Dionaea
  • Also known as a Venus flytrap, this species lives in the southeastern United States of America.
  • Dionaea’s steel trap isn’t as powerful as traps set by trappers for wolves, beavers, or bears, but it’s just as successful at catching its own little prey. Its natural habitat is the bogs of the middle southeastern coastal plain of the United States.
  • Family: Droseraceae
  • Genus: Aldrovanda
  • It is also known as a waterwheel plant. 
  • The species lives in marine areas in Europe, Asia, and Australia. Previously, it was widely disseminated in Africa, India, and Japan.

Eudicots, Rosids, Eurosids I

  • Order: Oxalidales
  • Family: Cephalotaceae
  • Genus: Cephalotus
  • It is also known as the Albany or Western Australian pitcher plant. It lives in peaty marshes of Southern Australia.
  • The single known species in this genus, Cephalotus follicularis, is endemic to the extreme southwestern section of Australia (near the town of Albany), where it dwells on the edges of freshwater marshes, ditches, and sluggish streams.
  • The plant has two kinds of leaves. It generates a regular photosynthetic leaf that is not fashioned like a trap in the spring. These only survive a year and give the plant stored carbon via photosynthesis. 
  • Pitcher leaves arise as these leaves reach their peak output. 
  • Although they seem similar to Nepenthes, they are linked to their stalks at the rear, whereas Nepenthes attaches at the base. Except certain cultivated kinds, they are usually smaller, measuring approximately 3 cm (a little more than an inch) and reaching a maximum of 6 cm. 
  • When the leaves develop, the lids open, revealing the pitcher of digesting fluid. The pitchers’ ribs are decorated with honey glands that attract insects, mostly ants, and draw them into the open trap. If the plant begins to dry, the lids may close, protecting it from loss of digestive fluid.

Eudicots, Asterids, Basal Asterids

  • Order: Ericales
  • Family: Sarraceniaceae
  • Genus: Darlingtonia
  • This is also known as a cobra lily. It is found in bogs in the northwest United States of America (Southern Oregon, Northern California).
  • Darlingtonia leaves are distinctive in that they are tubular and contain a fluid that digests trapped insects. For the trapping function, the top section of the leaf changes. 
  • The leaf’s tip is hooded. Insects can fly inside the hood through the circular aperture.The two flag-like appendages contain glands that exude sweet nectar, which flies and other insects feed on. 
  • Family: Sarraceniaceae
  • Genus: Sarracenia
  • This is another type of pitcher plant. 
  • There are now ten identified species inhabiting environments in eastern North America (central Canada to the southeastern United States of America).
  • Although their huge leaves resemble tall pitchers half-filled with water, they are also good flower mimics, which deceive both insects and people. 
  • Family: Sarraceniaceae
  • Genus: Heliamphora
  • This is also known as a marsh or sun pitcher. There are now seven recognized species that live in the high plateaus of the Guiana Shield in north-central South America (Venezuela and bordering Brazil and Guyana).
  • Heliamphora is one of three genera in the Sarraceniaceae family (the others are Darlingtonia and Sarracenia). One intriguing characteristic about Heliamphora is the environment in which it grows: the flat-topped mountains (called “tepuis“) of the Guiana Highlands. 
  • These mountains, which average around 2400 m in height, ascend rapidly to flat peak regions that are frequently cloud-shrouded. Heliamphora may be found in the tepuis’ moist, swampy places. 
  • Family: Roridulaceae
  • Genus: Roridula
  • This is also known as a bug plant or South African fly bush.
  • Two species are found in Southern African fynbos. Roridula has sticky leaves that attract insects but has no enzymes to digest them. 
  • It has been classified as carnivorous at times and not at others.

Eudicots, Euasterids I

  • Order: Lamiales
  • Family: Lentibulariaceae
  • Genus: Utricularia
  • This is also known as Bladderwort. It is the most varied and extensive genus of carnivorous plants, with 220 recognized species occupying temperate and tropical environments worldwide. 
  • Unlike other carnivores, Utricularia frequently survives in open water, but only in areas with low nutrition concentrations. 
  • One prevalent habitat is nutrient-depleted bog lakes. It replenishes its nutrition in open water by capturing insects in a bladder that resembles a suction bulb.
  • Tiny hairlike projections near the bladder’s entrance are sensitive to the movement of passing organisms such as Daphnia (water fleas). When these hairs are activated, the flattened bladder quickly inflates, drawing in water and the passing animal and closing a trapdoor behind it.
  • Family: Lentibulariaceae
  • Genus: Genlisea
  • It is also known as a corkscrew plant and there are now 20 recognized species in Africa, Madagascar, and South America.
  • Family: Lentibulariaceae
  • Genus: Pinguicula
  • This is also known as a butterwort plant. There are currently 79 recognized species in Europe, Asia, North America, and South America. 
  • Close inspection of Pinguicula lutea leaves reveals small hairs (visible at the base of the bottom leaf) that exude sticky mucilage. Invisible in the picture’s glittering surface are tiny spherical happy hairs that devour insects caught in the mucilage.
  • Pinguicula leaves are yellowish in color, which may be where the popular name butterwort comes from. Their trapping method is straightforward. Insects get entangled in the sticky mucilage (which they may mistake for water or nectar). 
  • When an insect gets trapped in the mucilage, the leaf’s edge progressively rolls over. The leaves never come together entirely. When the bug is consumed, the leaf margins unfurl and the leaf flattens. 
  • Pinguicula lutea has vivid yellow blooms. Bees are drawn to this hue. A bee can easily fit within the larger section of the Pinguicula lutea flower. The spur (on the left) is a little pointed tip on the bloom that carries a droplet of nectar. 
  • Pinguicula caerulea has bluish-purple blooms (caerulea means “sky-blue” in Latin). 
  • One flower is visible from the front and one from the side in this image. Take note of the little spur on the blossom in the side view. 
  • The blooms of Pinguicula caerulea, like those of Pinguicula lutea, are broad enough to admit a bee, and a long-tongued bee can drink honey from the spur when it fully penetrates the flower.
  • From the front, the bloom of Pinguicula caerulea has rich blue-purple veins on a white backdrop. Pollination is often connected with patterns like this. 
  • Such patterns are known as guides because bees are taught to follow the direction of the veins that bring them inside a flower.
  • Family: Byblidaceae
  • Genus: Byblis
  • This is also known as the rainbow plant. There are now 5 recognized species in northern and western Australia and New Guinea.
  • Byblis is a desert shrub that is endemic to Australia. Nonetheless, it resembles the sundew, Drosera. It has sticky hairs that attract insects by tricking them into thinking the glandular secretions are drips of honey. 
  • However, it differs from the sundew in that its hairs do not wrap around the trapped prey.

Monocotyledons, Commelinids

  • Order:  Poales
  • Family: Bromeliaceae
  • Subfamily: Pitcairnioideae
  • Genus: Brocchinia
  • At least two of the five species in the genus that live in lowland savanna and mountain environments in South America are carnivorous.
  • Family: Bromeliaceae
  • Subfamily: Pitcairnioideae
  • Genus: Catopsis
  • One of the 21 species of the genus is carnivorous. It lives in humid environments in South America, Central America, Mexico, the West Indies, and Florida.

WAYS OF ATTRACTING PREY

  • Carnivorous plants use a variety of techniques to lure animals into their traps. Some have strong-smelling nectar and vibrant colors that look like flowers. Others blend in with their surroundings, causing victims to run into them by accident. The bright colors of trapping organs may give the impression that they are flowers, but they are actually skillfully adapted leaves.

TRAPPING MECHANISMS

  • Plants are considered as carnivorous if they can trap and kill their prey. In order to do this, each type of carnivorous plant has its own unique way of trapping its prey. 

PITFALL TRAPS

  • Pitfall traps with an interior chamber are thought to have evolved independently at least six times. This adaptation may be found in the families Sarraceniaceae (Darlingtonia, Heliamphora, and Sarracenia), Nepenthaceae (Nepenthes), and Cephalotaceae (Cephalotus). 
  • In the Bromeliaceae family, pitcher shape and carnivory have evolved twice (Brocchinia and Catopsis). Because they do not share a common ancestor with pitfall trap morphology, carnivorous pitchers are an example of convergent evolution.
  • Pitfall traps are made out of a single leaf or rosettes that form a tube or pitcher-shaped trap. 
  • Prey is brought to the pitcher’s rim by the nectar. The prey loses its balance and falls into the base, which is filled with digestive fluid, due to a slippery material near the rim.
  • Low’s pitcher plant (Nepenthes Lowii) absorbs nutrients in a unique way compared to other carnivorous plants. 
  • Its toilet bowl-shaped pitchers are extremely sturdy and the ideal size for a tree shrew to stand astride while sipping nectar from the lid. 
  • Shrews defecate directly into the pitcher while feeding, providing nutrients that have already been digested. Low’s pitcher plants are only found on a few Borneo mountain slopes.
  • A fascinating interaction exists between woolly bats and the bat pitcher plant (Nepenthes Hemsleyana).
  • Rather than nectar, it provides a convenient roosting location. 
  • Its pitchers have a prominent ridge that bats may cling to, as well as extended holes that reflect their ultrasonic sounds across Borneo’s deep forest. In exchange, the plant receives a large amount of nutrient-dense bat guano (feces).

FLYPAPER / ADHESIVE TRAPS

  • The sundew genus (Drosera) has over 100 species of active flypapers with mucilage glands at the tips of long tentacles that frequently develop quickly enough in reaction to prey (thigmotropism) to help in capturing it. The tentacles of  D. Burmanii can bend 180° in about a minute.
  • Flypaper or adhesive traps entice insects and other tiny creatures with pleasant, sticky droplets that look like honey or dewdrops. 
  • Small insects are immobilized by the sticky slime and larger prey may try to break free, covering themselves deeper in the mucilage – death is typically indirect, by suffocation.

SNAP TRAPS

  • The only two active snap traps, the Venus flytrap (Dionaea muscipula) and the waterwheel plant (Aldrovanda vesiculosa), share an ancestor with the snap trap adaptation, which evolved from a lineage that employed flypaper traps. 
  • Their trapping mechanism has been referred to as a “mouse trap”, “bear trap”, or “man trap” because of its design and fast movement, but snap trap is favored since other titles are deceptive, especially when it comes to the intended target. Dionaea is a terrestrial arthropod that feeds on spiders, whereas Aldrovanda is aquatic and feeds on minute invertebrates.
  • The bug or tiny reptile that enters the trap, drawn by the lure of a flower, triggers sensitive trigger hairs. These send an electrical impulse that causes the leaf blades to snap shut and trap the guest. After securing a meal, the leaf secretes a digestive fluid to resorb the animal protein.

How Venus flytraps process their prey:

  1. Fly falls on open trap and brushes across sensory hairs, triggering electrical impulses. The first signal prepares the trap. The trap snaps shut after the second signal within 20 seconds.
  2. Struggling prey that continually touch the sensory hairs cause additional electrical impulses to be sent. Three or more impulses cause the chemical messenger jasmonate to be produced.
  3. Jasmonate causes the trap to close tightly, establishing a hermetically sealed “stomach”, and glands on the trap’s surface to produce digesting enzymes.
  4. Genes for transporter proteins are activated as enzymes break down prey into nutritional building pieces. Transporters are created, which transport nutrients into the plant.

BLADDER TRAPS

  • Bladder traps are unique to the bladderwort genus Utricularia. Ions are pumped out of the bladders (vesiculae). Water enters the bladder via osmosis, creating a partial vacuum. A hinged door seals a tiny gap in the bladder. 
  • The door in aquatic animals contains a pair of long trigger hairs. Aquatic invertebrates like Daphnia touch these hairs and use lever action to distort the door, releasing the vacuum. The invertebrate is pulled into the bladder and digested there.
  • Many Utricularia species (such as Utricularia sandersonii) are terrestrial, growing in damp soil, and their trapping mechanism works in a somewhat different way. 
  • Bladderworts lack roots, however, whereas terrestrial species contain root-like anchoring stems.

LOBSTER-POT/SNARE TRAPS

  • Prey that enters the spiral entrance that wraps around the top two arms of the Y are pushed inexorably towards the stomach in the lowest arm of the Y, where they are digested. 
  • Water movement through the trap is also expected to increase prey movement, which is created similarly to the suction in bladder traps and is likely ecologically connected to it.

COMBINATION TRAPS 

  • The sundew Drosera glanduligera’s trapping mechanism has elements of both flypaper and snap traps, earning it the moniker “catapult-flypaper trap”. This, however, is not the first combination trap. Nepenthes jamban is a mix of pitfall and flypaper traps due to its sticky pitcher fluid.

ECOLOGY

  • Carnivorous plants have a similar ecology whether they are watery or terrestrial. Species from two or three genera (Sarracenia, Drosera, and Pinguicula) are frequently found growing nearly side by side. The exception appears to be Drosophyllum lusitanicum, which thrives on arid, gravelly slopes in Portugal and Morocco. 
  • Carnivorous plants are generally tiny, however the range of size can be extreme even within the same genus.
  • The majority are herbaceous perennials that grow to be less than 30 cm (1 foot) tall, frequently as low as 10 to 15 cm (4 to 6 inches). Some Nepenthes species grow into enormous shrubby vines. Drosera species range in size from a few centimetres to one meter (3 feet) or more, and the tiniest are sometimes concealed amid the moss of a sphagnum bog.

CONSERVATION THREATS

  • The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) classifies around half of the plant species as threatened (vulnerable, endangered or critically endangered). Common risk factors include agricultural habitat loss, wild plant collecting, mining, geologic events, climate change, and a variety of other anthropogenic activities.
  • The Venus flytrap is a well-known example of a carnivorous plant that is severely endangered in the wild. It is only present in a few small, scattered remnants of its native habitat that are related to open spaces in acidic bogs. 
  • Fortunately, the Venus flytrap and many other carnivorous plant species can be vegetatively copied by spreading leaf fragments into damp sphagnum peat. However, some carnivorous plant species, such as several species of the tropical Eurasian pitcher plant, Nepenthes, are difficult to cultivate in greenhouses.

Carnivorous Plant Worksheets

This is a fantastic bundle that includes everything you need to know about Carnivorous Plant across 40 in-depth pages. These are ready-to-use worksheets that are perfect for teaching kids about Carnivorous Plant, also known as insectivorous plants or plant-eating insects.

Complete List of Included Worksheets

Below is a list of all the worksheets included in this document.

  1. Carnivorous Plant Facts 
  2. Plant or Not?
  3. Habitat Search!
  4. Clap Trap
  5. Picture Puzzle
  6. Kingdom Plantae
  7. Locating Meat-Eating Plant
  8. CarniCROSS Plants
  9. Code and Traps
  10. Guess the Gibberish
  11. Know, What, How

Frequently Asked Questions

What makes carnivorous plants so special?

Carnivorous plants, sometimes known as insect-eating plants, are particular because they have evolved to capture and digest insects and other animals using clever traps and pitfalls. Carnivory plants have emerged independently at least six times across several families and orders throughout the world.

How do carnivorous plants live?

Carnivorous plants reside in boggy areas where nitrates are scarce, so they need to digest prey to get their nitrogen intake. Carnivorous plants have evolved creative ways of catching insects, such as spring-loaded traps.

Are carnivorous plants edible?

Yes, carnivorous plants are edible. There is even a snack in several countries in Southeast Asia made from coconut-scented sticky rice wrapped in the traps of a carnivorous plant.

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Use With Any Curriculum

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