May 15

Carnivorous Plants

Red and White

A sundew plant.

Creative Commons License incidencematrix via Compfight

Imagine you are an explorer that is in a tropical place until you find these plants you have never seen !!!. I am here to talk about carnivorous plants. Today you would be learning about strange plants like that Bladderwort, Sundew and Pitcher plant.

Bladderwort

Bladderwort is carnivorous plants belonging to the Lentibulariaceae family consisting of approximately 223 species. They capture small organisms by means of bladder-like traps. They live in freshwater or wet soil across every continent except Antarctica.

Sundews

Sundews belong to Droseraceae family and they are one of the largest genera of carnivorous plants. Sundew leaves utilize hairy tentacles and gluey liquid to trap their prey. They grow in moist and acidic soils with a lot of sunlight.

Pitcher Plants

Another Pitcher plants

A pitcher plant.

Creative Commons License Percita via Compfight

Pitcher plants are carnivores whose leaves are known as pitfall traps. Their prey catching mechanism consists of a deep cavity containing digestive fluids. They live in acidic soils poor in minerals.


“Most of the time, plants are the ones that get eaten, but sometimes they get their revenge.” Carnivorous plants are often very colorful and attractive, have a beautiful smell and produce large quantities of nectar. The main idea of this blog post is to inform readers about carnivorous plants. Where they live and how they trap their prey. Are you aware that carnivorous plants can capture prey other than insects like mice, frogs, and other rodents?

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May 8

Invasive Species Take Over

Turtle

A red eared slider are invading rivers and lakes.

Creative Commons License Nicholas LabyrinthX via Compfight

Imagine having a new roommate move in with you, that you knew nothing about and just starts invading your home. How would that make you feel? Would that make you feel uncomfortable? Well, that is what an invasive species can be like. Invasive species are animals or plants from another region of the world, that don’t belong in their new environment. They can be introduced to an area by ship ballast water, accidental release, and most often by people. Invasive species can lead to the extinction of native plants and animals; destroy ecosystems and permanently change habitats. Three invasive species that have invaded other habitats are known to be the European Starling, Red-Eared Slider, and the Feral Pig.

Starling on the lough shore. Caroline Johnston via Compfight

The European Starling, invited or not? The European Starling is a bird that invaded North America in the late 1800s. A man known as Eugene Scheiffelin released sixty European starlings into New York’s Central Park because he hoped to beautify the city. Also, many European settlers freed starlings from birdcages to fill their new gardens with birdsong from home. The Starlings homeland is Eurasia, North Africa. Starlings are known as alien invaders because they come from another region, and invaders because they are taking over. In cities, starlings spread diseases by fouling on cars, balconies, handrails, and playground equipment with their droppings. In spring, they chase away shyer birds like; bluebirds and swallows out of their nesting holes. They eat the eggs and then lay their own.  In Autumn, starlings fly in huge flocks and swarm farmlands, eating up all the grains, corn, and ripe fruits. Today starlings are called dirty, noisy, and disease-spreading pests.

young wild boar

A wild pig.

Cloudtail the Snow Leopard via Compfight

The Red-Eared slider is a cute little water turtle but is also known to be a bully. Their home waters are in the Mississippi River in the United States.  In the 1970s, turtle farmers have raised red-eared sliders for international pet sales. These turtles have invaded areas like Southeast Asia, Islands in the Caribbean Sea, France, and Israel. Softhearted owners release their sliders into the wild when they outgrow their tanks. When released into nature, these turtles gobble up water plants, dragonfly larvae, crayfish, frogs, toads, salamanders, and small fish.  They bully water-birds off egg-filled nests and then spread out their reptile legs, neck, and tail to absorb the warm rays of the sun. Sliders weigh more than adult waterbirds, so they press the bird eggs underwater and drown them. In France and California, red-eared sliders threaten endangered native turtles by outcompeting them for food and by staking out the best basking spots.  

Hawaii, can it be the paradise lost land for the Feral pig? The first pigs trotted off Polynesian ships onto the Hawaiian Islands in about 400 A.D. In 1778, Captain James Cook released a pair of European pigs onto the Islands. Now large hybrid wild pigs are the most serious invasive species on the Hawaiian Islands. The homeland for the feral pigs is Eurasia, North Africa. Invading feral pigs, along with other mosquitoes, and parasites show no respect for glorious Hawaii. Feral pigs scarf down anything from snails, grain, nesting seabirds and their eggs. They eat fruiting or flowering plants and spread seeds in their poop. The pigs make a hole by digging entire trees but eat only the roots. These pigs have definitely made themselves at home in the Hawaiian Islands.

In conclusion, are all invasive species bad? No one can really confirm that invasive species are all good or all bad. Some species are clearly harmful, while others may have benefits. For example, the feral pig might eat anything and everything in sight but can also spread seeds in their poop. By the feral pig doing this, it can help the habitat with growing more vegetation. Another example is the European starling which can be a little harmful to its habitat because it can easily spread diseases. So the next time, you see an animal nearby;  you should ask yourself where did it really come from.

                 

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May 8

Killer Plants

Some carnivorous plants are like mazes that lead to a dead end. Some are like ticking time bombs. Others, just swallow creatures whole. When I first started researching about carnivorous plants, I thought I already knew a lot about them. It turns out that while I am learning about these plants, I can’t stop thinking about them because there is a lot more to be discovered. Imagine a fascinating, beautiful plant living in a boggy swamp and getting its nutrients not only from soil, but mostly… from meat! Dun, dun, dun!

There are 630 different kinds of carnivorous plants around the world. Some carnivorous plants are aquatic and others live in the soil like most other plants do. They live in poor, wet soil that doesn’t have a lot of nutrients. Because the soil doesn’t give them the nutrients they need, they’ve adapted by eating bugs or small animals. Carnivorous plants are divided in five types, according to how they can catch their prey (food): Pitfall Trap, Flypaper Trap, Snap Trap, Bladder Trap and Lobster Trap.

This carnivorous plant is called Monkey Cup because monkeys drink the water in it.

The Pitfall Trap plants have slippery leaves that are shaped like a funnel and slant down toward their bottom. When bugs land on the leaves of these plants, they slide down the leaf into a “pool” of digestive enzymes found in the bottom of the leaf. Monkey Cup and some bromeliads are examples of Pitcher plants and some are so large that they can catch and consume rats or frogs.

Pitcher Plants have a mechanism that they can turn on and off throughout the day. Part of the day, the Pitcher Plant’s edges are dry so when a scout ant comes and smells the nectar, it goes back to its colony and brings some of its friends. But by that time, the plant is wet and the ants fall into it. The Pitcher Plant gets an ant feast! If the Pitcher Plant was wet all the time, the one scout ant would slide down and not go back to the colony to bring the other ants, which means that it wouldn’t bring back all the food. Insects cannot escape Pitcher Plants, with their pitfall hunting mechanism.

The Sundew plant uses a sticky substance to hunt. It is a “flypaper trap” plant.

When bugs land on a Flypaper Trap carnivorous plant, the sticky substance that appears to be dew when it sparkles on the sun keeps bugs from being able to get away. When the bug struggles to escape, it gets even more stuck and the enzymes on the plant’s leaf digest it faster. Flypaper Trap plants are impossible to escape. Sundew and Butterwort are a couple of carnivorous plants in this category. 

Carnivorous plants with Snap Traps catch their food by trapping bugs or small animals inside their leaves so they cannot escape. All of you might have heard of the Venus Flytrap, but did you know that if the prey touches one of the hairs on the leaf it will set a timer? If it touches another hair within 20 seconds, then the plant will shut; otherwise, the prey will be safe. You can probably make a Venus Flytrap close its jaws with a stick, but it has to feel the prey struggling to start its digestive process. If the object isn’t food, the trap will reopen in about 12 hours and “spit” it out. The Venus Flytrap can only close its mouth six times in its lifetime.

A Venus Flytrap catches a lizard.

After capturing an insect or animal, The Venus Flytrap shuts in less than a second. “All of this takes about 1/2 second,” says Julia Cooke, a plant ecologist from the Hawkesbury Institute for the Environment at the University of Western Sydney, in Australia. But other carnivorous plants can move even faster: “The related Waterwheel Plant uses snap-traps, but underwater. This plant closes its traps in 20 milliseconds, making it one of the fastest movements recorded in plants.”

The Bladderwort is a type of aquatic carnivorous plant.

Carnivorous plants with Bladder Traps, like the Bladderworts and the Pinguicula, live in the water. They suck bugs and other small animals out of the water (like a vacuum cleaner)and into the bladder so they can be digested. There is no escape. 

The Cobra Lily uses the “lobster trap” mechanism to catch prey.

Carnivorous plants with Lobster Traps use tiny hairs which are all going the same direction to force bugs to walk toward the bottom of the plant’s leaves. The Cobra Lily and the Corkscrew are types of Lobster Trap plants. There are mazes inside them that are easy to enter but hard to leave that they use to catch prey. When the bugs hit a “dead end” with a pool full of digestive enzymes, they can’t escape.

I never knew that carnivorous plants were so interesting and that they were divided in five categories based on how they eat bugs and animals. They are beautiful but dangerous, inviting but deadly. Not to humans though, so don’t be scared if you see one in action. I hope you do.

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May 17

Itchy, Scratchy, Poison Oak

This poison oak is flowering.

Do you know the saying, “Leaves of three, let them be.”?  Did you know it is about poison oak? Poison oak is called poison oak for a reason, it’s poisonous. Poison oak is a plant that can be either a vine or sometimes a bush. There are different kinds of poison oak. West Poison Oak grows in the canyons around San Diego. Rose Canyon is full of poison oak. . It grows all along the west coast from Baja California, to California, to British Columbia in Canada.

Poison oak looks very different at different times of the year. In the fall the leaves get red and orange. In winter, the three leaves separate and fall off and we touch them thinking they are normal leaves. In spring poison oak has new leaves of three so let them be. Lastly, in summer they are still like spring and they grow berries and flowers that are poisonous. One very poisonous part of poison oak is the berries. They have greenish flowers and poisonous waxy white berries. The berries on poison oak are as poisonous as the leaf. If you ever come up to poison oak or berries and flowers The poison oil, on the leaves react to our skin when we touch the leaves surface. When we touch the leaf its oils itches our skin. Its oils react to our oils on our skin and the rash is a red blistering rash. Which causes a rash that if you don’t cure right away it will get worse because its oils will spread onto our oils.

Some animals don’t react to poison oak. Deer actually eat poison oak and they don’t get a reaction at all! Birds hide themselves in it so they stay unreachable from predators that react to poison oak. The birds aren’t bothered by the poison oak.

When you go to a canyon make sure you don’t touch any plants with three leaves. A way to remember it is “ Leaves of three let them be”. Remember it’s Toxicodendron Diversilobum (poison oaks real name).

 By Eeekster (Own work) [CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

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