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Ever wondered what a fly’s worst nightmare might be? No, nor have I, but I bet it looks something like Venus flytraps catching their dinner.
Despite their name, and the fact that they look like something from another planet, wild Venus fly traps (Dionaea muscipula) are actually only found in the wetlands that lie within a hundred-mile radius of Wilmington, North Carolina, Planet Earth.
And another thing – they don’t just eat flies. As long as its prey is roughly the right size, and touches two of its hairs within twenty seconds, then the carnivorous plant’s jaw-like leaves will snap shut on any insect or spider that comes its way.
If the meal is too small and is able to escape then the leaf opens up again within a few hours. But if dinner continues to struggle, the lobes close even further until the outer edges have sealed to form something akin to a stomach. Here, glands in the lobes secrete enzymes that break the dinner down into a fluid that the flytrap can then digest.
Ten days after dining on the soup in their fly, the trap pops open to reveal nothing but a dried out husk. Despite the poor soil beneath it, the plant has just obtained all the nitrogen it needs.
As it can take two to three weeks for a new leaf to develop into a fully-formed trap, cameraman Tim Shepherd used time-lapse photography to bring the sequence to life. But there is nothing speeded up about the traps shutting on their prey. That takes just a fraction of a second.
Link – via rubberrepublic
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If you thought three-foot carnivorous worms and flesh-eating stars only occurred in science fiction, then welcome to the weird and wacky world of McMurdoe Sound. Despite near freezing temperatures, there is plenty of life in the shallow waters of Antarctica as nemertean worms and five-legged sea stars prowl along the seabed in search of food.
One of the most ambitious shoots BBC LIFE attempted, the sequence was filmed under the permanent ice of the Ross Sea. But because sea stars and nemertean worms move incredibly slowly, the team had to use time-lapse photography to bring them to life. The trickiest part, however, was trying to rig the gear under 8 feet of solid ice. Every piece of equipment had to be brought through a specially drilled hole in the ice and be monitored every day. In the end, it took the crew over 100 dives to get the sequence.
Link – via adaphorismos
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Tiny pebble toads have a unique defensive strategy against tarantulas that involves freefalling like a rubber ball.
The above footage is from the "Reptilians and Amphibians" episode of BBC Life, a new epic nature documentary series in the ilk of Planet Earth. The episode also features the incredible Jesus Christ Lizard that walks on water and the unsinkable pygmy gecko.
– via bbc
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