The Venus Flytrap's Fly Trap

Video Transcript

"Hi my name is Wes on behalf of Expert Village.com, and in this video segment I am going to show you how to grow the Venus fly trap. If you want to know more about carnivorous plants and Venus fly traps, you can visit us at equilibriocarnivorousplants.com. In this video segment, I am going to talk to you about how the traps on this plant close. It is important to note that the traps of the Venus Fly Trap are really just modified leaves, just like on any other plant; and the way these traps close, is through a complex system of sensitive trigger hairs and electrical impulses. What actually happens when the trap closes…is that the sensitive trigger hairs that are located on the inside of the trap trigger the cells on the outside of the leaf to grow almost instantly. This causes the plant to close like this on any insect that is on the inside. We can see this happening inside of the plant when we trigger the sensitive trigger hairs ourselves. The trap closes almost instantly, on any insect or something else that would be crawling inside of the plant. The Venus Fly Trap is almost unique in the plant world for its ability to move like this. That is one thing that makes it an incredible plant. It is important also to know that you shouldn’t trigger the trap to close when you are trying to cultivate this plant. Doing this too often will make the plant expend too much energy on growing quickly, and not enough energy on growing itself. This can actually cause too much stress on the plant, and even cause the plant to die if it is done too often. "