Vacuum Feeder
Carnivores that suck up prey
Many a small crustacean met its end in this bladderwort trap, seen here in a close-up
Carnivorous bladderworts trap prey with speed that would make a Bond villain shudder in gleeful envy. Using high-speed cameras, researchers have gotten the first good look at how these underwater plants spring their ambushes. Bladderworts sport trap doors that buckle in with a tiny nudge, creating a whirlpool that sucks in wee critters all in about half a millisecond. That's some of the fastest plant action on Earth, a French and German team reports online February 15 in theProceedings of the Royal Society B. Forget Venus flytraps. Bladderworts of the genus Utricularia are really cunning meat eaters. "Utricularia are the smallest of carnivorous plants and also, evidently, the most sophisticated," says Lubomír Adamec, a plant physiologist at the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic. These netlike veggies are dotted with tiny traps, often no wider than an ant is long. Small or not, the traps are masterpieces of suction. Pumped nearly dry, the chambers set up a pressure difference between the plant's innards and the water outside. When swimmers brush up against a series of hairs along the trap door, the door bursts open and sucks water and crustaceans alike in. Despite decades of interest in these nefarious plants, botanists couldn't say for sure how the traps worked. Bladderworts were just too quick for old-school cameras. But with fancy new high-speed cameras, biologists can get their close-ups, says Adamec.
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