Unsuspecting victims lured onto insect eating plants in Kildare wildlife
Kildare wildlife watch
Many of you will be familiar with the world’s most famous insect eating plant, the venus flytrap. However, many of you will also be surprised to learn that Ireland has its own native insect eating plants.
The first is lesser bladderwort (Lus borraigh beag as Gaeilge). This is the least observed of all insect eating plants as it grows beneath the surface of the water in bog pools, ditches and other nutrient poor wetlands. In June and July, watch for the pale yellow flowers held on lose stems above the surface of the water, which will help you identify if lesser bladderwort is present in your community.
Bladderwort uses flask shaped bladders to trap microscopic organisims by sucking the microorganism into its trap where it is digested, and becomes valuable nutrients for the lesser bladderwort to continue to grow.
Last week I came across a second native insect eating plant in Ireland, butterwort (Bodán meascáin as Gaeilge).
This is found growing on bogs and is recognised by its oblong light green leaves that grow in a basal rosette resembling a star shape close to the bogs surface.
The purple flower is held on an erect slender stem which blooms from May-August. The leaves of butterwort are the traps, the surface of each leaf is covered in sticky glue. Unsuspecting insects that land or crawl on the butterwort leaf will get stuck. The leaf margins then curl around the insect creating a stomach, pores in the leaf surface release digestive juices and nutrients from the insect are them absorbed by the butterwort leaf.
Finally the leaf margins will uncurl, and any remains will blow away in the wind before the leaf secretes fresh glue ready to trap their next insect. Another insect eating plant is sundew and Ireland has two varieties round leaved and oblong sundew.
Similar to butterwort, these use glue to trap their prey using their sticky tentacles. Will you observe an insect eating plant in your local area this week?
If you would like help identifying a wildlife observation in your community you can contact me on [email protected].
- Nuala Madigan, The Bog of Allen Nature Centre, Lullymore