Your new post is loading...
So far, the best-known attractants in carnivorous prey traps are nectar, colour and olfactory cues. Reporting a new prey capture mechanism in some species of carnivorous plants. They found the existence of distinct blue fluorescence emissions at the 'capture spots' of Nepenthes, Sarracenia, Drosera, Pinguicula, Dionaea muscipula and Utricularia stellaris at UV 366 nm. When the capture spot was masked by coating a non-fluorescent extract, the pray capture was drastically reduced. The study has been published as a short research paper in the current issue of 'Plant Biology'
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1438-8677.2012.00709.x/abstract
Via Annals of Botany: Plant Science Research
Carnivorous plants generally don't have traps that resemble flowers, presumably so they don't capture pollinators. I wonder if any insects captured here are pollinators? UV spots are part of many flowers, so do the spots on carnivorous plant parts differ from those on flowers?