The Venus is a plant which is native to the subtropical wetlands on the East Coast of the United States in North Carolina and South Carolina. It is labeled as a carnivorous plant due to its reputation of trapping and digesting insects that landed on it.
However, a Youtuber by the name of Kluna Tik has uploaded several videos regarding his own Venus flytrap. Meet Charlie the Venus Flytrap. In his Youtube channel, Kluna Tik experimented on several things for Charlie to digest. From watermelons to sushi, Charlie has tried it all.
Charlie is fed with various items and food so netizens can observe how the plant reacted towards them
A Venus flytrap has a trigger sensor inside its trap. When the hairs inside the trap is stimulated, the plant quickly closes the trap to prevent its prey from escaping. The plant will then slowly secrete its digestive enzymes to absorb the nutrients from its prey.
Watch and see how Charlie reacts to different types of stimulus:
Based on the video recordings the flytrap responds to non-living prey as well
This experiment is quite interesting as the main prey for the Venus flytrap usually involves insects specifically beetles, spiders, and other crawling arthropods. However, based on Charlie’s response, it can be deduced that as long as the hairs inside the trap is stimulated, the plant will sense it and react as though a prey has landed on it.
There are two stimulations of the trigger hairs in side the trap; this is to avoid accidental triggering of the trapping mechanism by dust and other wind-borne debris.
Hair stimulation is used to differentiate between living and non-living prey
