Unlike conventional plants, the Venus flytrap copes with poor soil by eating bugs! But the cost of insect hunting is high. Catching prey requires Dionaea muscipula to snap down quickly and then carry out the energy-intensive process of digestion. To balance the costs and benefits of eating meat, the plants have developed a counting system to identify real prey from false alarms, according to a new study.

 To understand how the flytrap distinguishes a potential food source from a false alarm like a raindrop, researchers observed the electrical and chemical response of the plant to touch stimulation. In order to mimic insect prey, the scientists stimulated the hairlike sensors located on the plant’s trap. Touching the sensors two times quick ...

These tropical arachnids known as selenopid spiders (pictured above) possess the rare ability to steer themselves in the air and jump between trees - an unexpected talent for spiders, which have no history of flight.


Researchers theorize that this behavior may have evolved because tree trunks are a far better place for a tree-dwelling spider than the forest floor, an unfamiliar territory crawling with creatures looking for a meal. ...