Venus' Fly Trap (Dionaea muscipula)

This picture was published in the Mexican conservation journal, Especies, Mar-Apr, 2010 as the title photo for an article on carnivorous plants.

Photographed in the "little bog of horrors" were some clumps of Venus' Flytraps. This was one of the few traps we found open and with an insect in it. This plant, native to North and South Carolina, has folding leaves which are ordinarily open, but are triggered to close when an insect lands inside the trap. Having closed and trapped an insect the plant slowly digests the insect and then reopens.
The website for the Botanical Society of America provides the following information:
"The leaves of Venus' Flytrap open wide and on them are short, stiff hairs called trigger or sensitive hairs. When anything touches these hairs enough to bend them, the two lobes of the leaves snap shut trapping whatever is inside. The trap will shut in less than a second. The trap doesn't close all of the way at first. It is thought that it stays open for a few seconds in order to allow very small insects to escape because they wouldn't provide enough food. If the object isn't food, e.g., a stone, or a nut, the trap will reopen in about twelve hours and 'spit' it out.
When the trap closes over food, the cilia, finger-like projections, keep larger insects inside.... In a few minutes the trap will shut tightly and form an air-tight seal in order to keep the digestive fluids inside and bacteria out. The exoskeleton of the insect can not be digested by the flytrap, so it remains when the leaf reopens. If an insect is too large it will stick out of the trap. This allows bacteria and molds on the insect to thrive. Eventually the trap turns black, rots and falls off.
The trap constricts tightly around the insect and secretes digestive juices, much like those in your stomach. It dissolves the soft, inner parts of the insect, but not the tough, outer part called the exoskeleton. At the end of the digestive process, which takes from five to twelve days, the trap reabsorbs the digestive fluid and then reopens. The leftover parts of the insect, the exoskeleton, blow away in the wind or are washed away by rain. The time it takes for the trap to reopen depends on the size of the insect, temperature, the age of the trap, and the number of times it has gone through this process.
The lobe manufactures digestive juices and an antiseptic juice. This keeps the insect from decaying over the few days it is in the trap and purifies prey that it captures....
People still do not understand fully how the trap closes. The Venus' Flytrap does not have a nervous system or any muscles or tendons. Scientists theorize that it moves from some type of fluid pressure activated by an actual electrical current that runs through each lobe."