Venus fly traps are one of nature’s most interesting plants as they’re one of the few that’s carnivorous, meaning they actually eat living creatures. However, despite being plants, the mechanisms or their electrically activated jaws were never quite understood. That is until now.
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00:00 Venus flytraps are one of nature's most interesting plants, as they're one of the
00:07 few that's carnivorous, meaning they actually eat living creatures.
00:11 However, despite being, well, plants, the mechanisms of their electrically activated
00:15 jaws were never quite understood.
00:17 That is, until now.
00:19 Researchers from Linköping University in Sweden say that it was only a few years ago
00:22 that botanists were able to figure out what instigated the closing of a Venus flytrap's
00:26 jaws.
00:27 A Venus flytrap has two sequential strokes of highly sensitive hairs within its mouth,
00:31 which causes an influx of charged calcium ions to close the fanged plant's jaws.
00:35 However, this was only the first step, with this new study mapping the precise propagation
00:39 of those signals.
00:40 The charged calcium ions create what's called an action potential, and even though plants
00:44 don't have a nervous system like us, this action potential causes similar reactions
00:48 in the plant nonetheless.
00:49 So researchers used electrodes that could cover much of the plant's lobes, or what make
00:53 up its carnivorous head.
00:55 Meaning that if the sensory hairs were touched twice within 30 seconds, they would snap shut
00:59 on the second encounter, and those signals would radiate at a constant speed.
01:02 However, if they were touched with more than a minute in between, the electrical signal
01:06 would move faster on the second encounter.
01:08 Meaning it appears that the plant was more aware, almost as if the Venus flytrap was
01:12 on guard.
01:13 [MUSIC PLAYING]
01:17 [inaudible]