Themes > Science > Botanical Sciences > Carnivorous Plants > What do Carnivorous plants eat?

D.adelae
Dinner!

gross!

It depends on where they live. Many carnivorous plants, such as Utricularia and Aldrovanda, live with their traps submerged in water. These plants capture very small prey like rotifers and daphnia, and even larger aquatic prey such as mosquito larvae and even fish fry.

Evidence suggests that the genus Genlisea has traps specialized to capture protozoa! Meanwhile, Pinguicula and Drosera tend to catch flying insects like gnats, flies, and moths. Pitcher plants (Sarracenia, Nepenthes, Cephalotus, etc.) capture foraging insects, especially flies, moths, wasps, butterflies, beetles, and ants. Venus Flytraps capture any crawling insect---mine feast particularly on spiders, but plants in the wild no doubt have a different diet.

 

A few times vertebrates such as rats and birds have been captured. The carnivorous plants in these cases have been Nepenthes, the tropical pitcher plant, but these are rare surprises and do not represent normal prey (any rat or bird that could not struggle, gnaw, or peck its way out of a Nepenthes pitcher is probably sick or near death from other causes). Frogs are more commonly captured, but even this is fairly rare. Nepenthes usually satisfies its gluttonous appetite with crawling bugs and insects. Pass the centipedes, please, I'd like another helping!


Information provided by: http://www.sarracenia.com