NATURALIST'S 



NOTEBOOK 



sealing it into a digestive vat. After 

 drowning the victim and absorbing its 

 nutrients, the trap reopens, allowing the 

 undigested remains to blow away. A 

 trap wears out after one to four live 

 meals, when the leaf turns black and 

 dies. A trap that captures nothing can 

 close up to 10 times, reopening in 24 

 hours each time. 



Contrary to its name, research 

 shows that only 2 percent of the plant's 

 prey are flies, with 90 percent of its 

 captives coming from the ant, beetle and 

 spider kingdoms, and the rest dubbed 

 miscellaneous, Gardner says. 



"Maybe it should be more 

 accurately called the Venus' ant 

 trap," he observes. 



The diversity of prisoners found in 

 the traps rules out the possibility that the 

 plant has one lure. 



"No single attractant could bring in 

 spiders, beetles and ants — they don't 

 even belong to the same kingdom," he 

 says. "The one thing that all their 

 captives have in common is that they are 

 all ground-dwelling, hopping, crawling 

 animals and that they just happen to 

 wander into these traps." 



Most victims are those that 

 walk the earth as 

 opposed to fly, 

 agrees Dunn, 

 who says the 

 weirdest sight 

 he's seen in a 

 trap was a 

 young green 

 lizard. 



"That's pretty 

 unusual, but it looked 

 dramatic," he says. 

 "Half its body was 

 trapped 



inside, and •? 

 it died." 



Such amazing feats conjure up 

 images of huge plants, but a mature 

 Venus' flytrap is no more than 4 to 5 

 inches tall. And despite its ferocious 

 reputation, the plant itself is vulnerable, 

 worthy of a legal designation of 

 "special concern" in North Carolina. 

 Loss of habitat is the main reason it is 

 now rare in the wild, with poaching a 

 lesser contributor. 



By law, Venus' flytraps cannot be 

 collected from public property. On 

 private land, they cannot be removed 

 without the landowner's written 

 permission. Anyone interested in buying 

 them should look for nurseries that 

 artificially propagate them. 



In the wild, man-made drainage 

 and fire suppression have diminished 

 their homes. But Venus' flytraps thrive 

 in areas such as The Nature 

 Conservancy's 1 6,000-acre Green 

 Swamp Nature Preserve in Brunswick 

 County, kept in a natural state by 

 prescribed burnings. 



"The Venus' flytraps live in a 

 community maintained by natural 

 fires that clear out the underbrush," 

 Boyer explains. 



The fact that North 

 Carolina is second in the 

 nation only to Florida in 

 annual numbers of lightning strikes — 

 which often cause fires — could help 

 explain why the plant likes it here, says 

 ames Ward, a curator with the N.C. 

 Botanical Garden. The indigenous 

 peoples who once lived here also may 

 have unknowingly nurtured its habitat 

 through their use of fire, he says. 



Whatever the reason, one 

 wonders why such an oddity 

 chose to live in only this 

 part of the world. Was it 

 the perfect spot where fire 

 and water met? Or did it 

 evolve here as a plant that knew 

 how to make the best of poor 

 conditions? 



No one knows. 

 As Boyer puts it, the question 

 on people's minds is, "How 

 / can something so exotic- 

 ? ^ looking and exotic- 

 p acting be right at 

 p _ home here?" □ 



Illustration by 

 Anne Marshall Runyon 



COASTWATCH 19 



