carnivorous plant
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AI overview
A carnivorous plant is a plant that traps and consumes animals or tiny single-celled organisms called protozoans. These plants have evolved this unusual feeding strategy, likely to supplement nutrients they cannot get efficiently from soil in their natural environments.
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Research
1,026 papersvia PubMed
Article
An upper pitcher of Nepenthes lowii, a tropical pitcher plant that supplements its carnivorous diet with tree shrew droppings.
Carnivorous plants are plants that derive some or most of their nutrients from trapping and consuming animals or protozoans, typically insects and other arthropods, and occasionally small mammals and birds. They have adapted to grow in waterlogged sunny places where the soil is thin or poor in nutrients, especially nitrogen, such as acidic bogs. They can be found on all continents except Antarctica, as well as many Pacific islands. In 1875, Charles Darwin published Insectivorous Plants, the first treatise to recognize the significance of carnivory in plants, describing years of his research.