Venus Flytraps Are Even Creepier Than We Thought
January 23, 2016 9:39 AM Subscribe
Natural selection is a hell of a drug.
posted by mhoye at 9:50 AM on January 23, 2016 [3 favorites]
posted by mhoye at 9:50 AM on January 23, 2016 [3 favorites]
If you accidentally get transformed into a fly, and get caught in a Venus flytrap, here is some valuable advice: Don’t panic.
“If you just sit there and wait, the next morning, the trap will open and you can leave,” says Ranier Hedrich from the University of Würzburg. “It you panic, you induce a deadly cycle of disintegration.”
Who the fuck is this written for, Gregor Samsa?
posted by Foci for Analysis at 9:55 AM on January 23, 2016 [26 favorites]
“If you just sit there and wait, the next morning, the trap will open and you can leave,” says Ranier Hedrich from the University of Würzburg. “It you panic, you induce a deadly cycle of disintegration.”
Who the fuck is this written for, Gregor Samsa?
posted by Foci for Analysis at 9:55 AM on January 23, 2016 [26 favorites]
This explains why our venus flytraps always died. My friend Alex and I used to buy venus flytraps from the local botanical garden. We were told to feed them pieces of chopped meat if flies weren't in abundance. Of course, once we got the plant to close over the piece of meat, it didn't move. And so it wasn't digested. The ones that were lucky enough to get a fly or an ant lived longer. Ultimately they were indoor plants and did not thrive.
posted by Splunge at 10:13 AM on January 23, 2016 [2 favorites]
posted by Splunge at 10:13 AM on January 23, 2016 [2 favorites]
If you accidentally get transformed into a fly, and get caught in a Venus flytrap, here is some valuable advice: Don’t panic.
“If you just sit there and wait, the next morning, the trap will open and you can leave,” says Ranier Hedrich from the University of Würzburg. “It you panic, you induce a deadly cycle of disintegration.”
Who the fuck is this written for, Gregor Samsa?
"And he sat, panicking but not moving, waiting for the morning to come and free him; and when morning did come, after a night of dark and unnameable terror, so great was his desire to be free that he almost betrayed himself by pushing on the walls of his cage. Instead, he held himself tightly, patiently. The cage did not release its consumptive liquids, but neither did it open. And so it went: paralyzed, ever more still, he waited for each morning to come..."
posted by clockzero at 10:17 AM on January 23, 2016 [28 favorites]
“If you just sit there and wait, the next morning, the trap will open and you can leave,” says Ranier Hedrich from the University of Würzburg. “It you panic, you induce a deadly cycle of disintegration.”
Who the fuck is this written for, Gregor Samsa?
"And he sat, panicking but not moving, waiting for the morning to come and free him; and when morning did come, after a night of dark and unnameable terror, so great was his desire to be free that he almost betrayed himself by pushing on the walls of his cage. Instead, he held himself tightly, patiently. The cage did not release its consumptive liquids, but neither did it open. And so it went: paralyzed, ever more still, he waited for each morning to come..."
posted by clockzero at 10:17 AM on January 23, 2016 [28 favorites]
Velvet Ant vs. Venus Flytrap: who wins?
posted by lagomorphius at 11:18 AM on January 23, 2016 [6 favorites]
posted by lagomorphius at 11:18 AM on January 23, 2016 [6 favorites]
This is incredible! The neurobiology of plants...
There's an amazing story about mimosas plants. These plants have lots of little leaves that curl themselves up in response to being touched. The speculation is that they after being contacted by a herbivore (like a deer), they curl up to make themselves look dead, which causes herbivores not to eat them. The fascinating recent discovery is that they respond differently to different types of "touch" - wind, for example, does not cause the leaves to curl up. Apparently if you drop the plant, the leaves will curl up at first, but after many drops it "learns" that being dropped is not associated with herbivory (or whatever cue it's using), and the leaves stop curling when you drop them. This, of course, looks a lot like the "acclimatization" that animals also do, it's amazing that a plant would have such rapid sensory adaptation. The fact that these general principles of neurobiology also hold in plants raises the question - is it convergent or conserved? That is, did the adaptation response evolve independently in plants and animals, or is this type of response ancient, existing today in plants and animals because it also existed in the ancestor from which plants and animals both evolved, and has been maintained in both lineages ever since?
posted by Buckt at 2:23 PM on January 23, 2016 [5 favorites]
There's an amazing story about mimosas plants. These plants have lots of little leaves that curl themselves up in response to being touched. The speculation is that they after being contacted by a herbivore (like a deer), they curl up to make themselves look dead, which causes herbivores not to eat them. The fascinating recent discovery is that they respond differently to different types of "touch" - wind, for example, does not cause the leaves to curl up. Apparently if you drop the plant, the leaves will curl up at first, but after many drops it "learns" that being dropped is not associated with herbivory (or whatever cue it's using), and the leaves stop curling when you drop them. This, of course, looks a lot like the "acclimatization" that animals also do, it's amazing that a plant would have such rapid sensory adaptation. The fact that these general principles of neurobiology also hold in plants raises the question - is it convergent or conserved? That is, did the adaptation response evolve independently in plants and animals, or is this type of response ancient, existing today in plants and animals because it also existed in the ancestor from which plants and animals both evolved, and has been maintained in both lineages ever since?
posted by Buckt at 2:23 PM on January 23, 2016 [5 favorites]
This, of course, looks a lot like the "acclimatization" that animals also do
I remember reading once that "of course" is a hint that you should look more carefully at what you're being told.
posted by sneebler at 5:00 PM on January 23, 2016 [1 favorite]
I remember reading once that "of course" is a hint that you should look more carefully at what you're being told.
posted by sneebler at 5:00 PM on January 23, 2016 [1 favorite]
My friend has a venus flytrap that she feeds dead flies to (killed with a flyswat). The plant seems to happily digest them, and is thriving. How does that work when the fly presumably is not struggling enough to trigger these responses?
posted by lollusc at 11:08 PM on January 23, 2016
posted by lollusc at 11:08 PM on January 23, 2016
Woth noting that wild venus fly traps are a species at risk from poaching. If you find them please leave them alone.
posted by subtle_squid at 9:03 AM on January 25, 2016
posted by subtle_squid at 9:03 AM on January 25, 2016
Hey sneebler, certainly a good point, but you may have misunderstood what I was saying. My point wasn't that it of course is is the same thing as acclimatization, but that they look superficially similar. The question then becomes - is it actually the same, or is it different? Most likely, it's different - probably acclimatization has evolved repeatedly because it is a useful process for anything that responds to the environment.
posted by Buckt at 10:16 AM on January 30, 2016
posted by Buckt at 10:16 AM on January 30, 2016
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posted by kozad at 9:48 AM on January 23, 2016 [2 favorites]