My sweet, lil' meat-eating babies
I love carnivorous plants. I love them so much I got a a tattoo of Charles Darwin's sketch of a venus fly trap.
True carnivory is believed to have evolved independently at least 12 times in five different orders of flowering plants, and is represented by more than a dozen genera. This classification includes at least 583 species that attract, trap, and kill prey, absorbing the resulting available nutrients. There are over 300 protocarnivorous plants that show some, but not all, of these characteristics. New carnivorous plants are being discovered every year!
I will be adding to this page as I get more of them and take more or better pictures, but my collection includes:
Drosera (Sundews)
These secret sticky droplets that aid in the digestion process. The leaves will curl up upon catching prey!
Lowland and Highland Nepenthes
These get so big that they have been known to digest small birds, reptiles and animals!
Sarracenia (pitcher plants) and Dionaea muscipula (venus fly traps) from North America
Heliamphora (South American pitcher plants)
These grow on the tepuis in the Guiana Highlands of Venezuela and Brazil. Some tepuis are extremely difficult to get to because of the harsh geography and because of the surmised isolated ecospheres, more species are believed to exist besides the 24 known as of now.
You can see my writeup of a watering system that I built for my babies by
clicking here!
