Mysterious bug-eating Venus flytraps can generate a magnetic field, researchers learn
The notorious bug-eating Venus flytrap just got more mysterious, after scientists discovered the plants generate magnetic fields.
That’s something humans and animals do, but it’s not the norm for plants, according a team of scientists at Johannes Gutenberg University in Germany.
The team’s findings were published Jan. 14 in Scientific Reports, which said the data raises questions about the capabilities of plants.
“In the future, magnetometry may be used to study long-distance electrical signaling in a variety of plant species,” the report said.
Venus flytraps are “one of the most widely recognized plant species on Earth,” according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. They are rare, and are mostly found in North Carolina and South Carolina, according to the National Wildlife Federation.
In North Carolina, they are centered largely within a 75-mile radius of coastal city Wilmington, according to NCpedia.
“The Venus flytrap has captivated scientists for centuries, perhaps because of how un-plant-like it is,” The Atlantic reported in a 2016 article titled, “Venus Flytraps Are Even Creepier Than We Thought.”
“It captures and eats animals. Its leaves look unnervingly like fang-lined mouths. It moves quickly, with each of its traps closing shut in a tenth of a second.”
The flytraps accomplish all this without “a nervous system or any muscles or tendons,” the Botanical Society of American reports.
Stranger still, the plants somehow have the ability to know not to “eat the insects that pollinate them,” according to N.C. State University.
“Once the trap is tightly closed, digestive acids and enzymes dissolve the insect, and the plant absorbs the nutrient-rich soup,” the San Diego Zoo reports. “Seven to ten days later, the trap opens, ready for another meal.”
The magnetic field produced by Venus flytraps is “one of the first such fields ever detected in plants,” according to Live Science.
Researchers made the discovery using a procedure “a little like performing an MRI scan in humans,” according to a news release from Johannes Gutenberg University.
They determined the magnetic field is generated as the plants digest the prey trapped in leaf lobes, which are “electrically excitable.” The field is faint, “millions of times weaker than the Earth’s magnetic field.”
“The signal magnitude recorded is similar to what is observed during surface measurements of nerve impulses in animals,” physicist Anne Fabricant said in the release.
Venus flytraps are listed as a vulnerable species and are “under consideration for federal listing on the U.S. endangered species list,” according to the National Wildlife Federation.
This story was originally published February 11, 2021 at 12:05 PM with the headline "Mysterious bug-eating Venus flytraps can generate a magnetic field, researchers learn."