Field of Science

As fast as greased bladderwort

Bladderworts are one of those really cool carnivorous plants that most people seldom see, and if they do they see the flowering stalks, they fail to notice the tiny bladder traps under water or in some instances under ground if the soil is very wet. Like other carnivorous plants, animals, little tine animals, are trapped to be decomposed/digested for nitrogenous wastes in habitats with low nitrogen levels. The Phactor has watched them through a microscope and they are wonderfully entertaining, but here is a high speed video to show how the really work. And boy, do these bladders suck. Here you can see the bladders on highly divided branches below water. The bladders are no more than 1 mm across.

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