Scientists from Stuttgart, Germany, have demonstrated how carnivorous plants set traps using an ingenious material design.Plants are able, using organic substances, to achieve effects that are otherwise mostly known only from technical materials, according to researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Metals Research and the University of Hohenheim. They say these plants catch insects and hold them using traps with a double layer of crystalline wax.
The upper layer has crystalloids that contaminate the attachment organs that insects use to adhere themselves to surfaces. The lower layer additionally reduces the contact area between the insect feet and plant surface.
The insects thus slip into the pitcher-shaped traps, where they are digested, according to the study published The Journal of Experimental Biology.
Via : UPI.