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An upper pitcher of Nepenthes lowii, a tropical pitcher plant that supplements its carnivorous diet with tree shrew droppings. [1] [2] [3]Carnivorous plants are plants that derive some or most of their nutrients from trapping and consuming animals or protozoans, typically insects and other arthropods, and occasionally small mammals and birds.
The secretory system can only function a single time, so that a particular area of the leaf surface can only be used to digest insects once. [4] Unlike many other carnivorous plant species, butterworts do not appear to use jasmonates as a control system to switch on the production of digestive enzymes. Jasmonates are involved in the butterwort ...
Many pitcher plants exhibit patterns of ultraviolet coloration which may play a role in attracting insects. [3] Some species, such as Cephalotus follicularis , likely use camouflage to trap insects, as their coloration matches that of the surrounding environment and the plants are often embedded in the substrate such that the traps are flush ...
Drosera, which is commonly known as the sundews, is one of the largest genera of carnivorous plants, with at least 194 species. [2] These members of the family Droseraceae [1] lure, capture, and digest insects using stalked mucilaginous glands covering their leaf surfaces.
Honeydew is a sugar-rich sticky liquid, secreted by aphids, some scale insects, and many other true bugs and some other insects as they feed on plant sap. When their mouthpart penetrates the phloem , the sugary, high-pressure liquid is forced out of the anus of the insects, allowing them to rapidly process the large volume of sap required to ...
A robber fly eating a hoverfly The giant anteater, a large insectivorous mammal. An insectivore is a carnivorous animal or plant that eats insects. [1] An alternative term is entomophage, [2] which can also refer to the human practice of eating insects. The first vertebrate insectivores were amphibians.
The coating of plants with honeydew can contribute to the spread of fungi which can damage plants. [118] [119] Honeydew produced by aphids has been observed to reduce the effectiveness of fungicides as well. [120] A hypothesis that insect feeding may improve plant fitness was floated in the mid-1970s by Owen and Wiegert.
Insects as food or edible insects are insect species used for human consumption. [1] Over 2 billion people are estimated to eat insects on a daily basis. [ 2 ] Globally, more than 2,000 insect species are considered edible, though far fewer are discussed for industrialized mass production and regionally authorized for use in food.