Carnivorous plant

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Carnivorous plant (食虫植物)

Mount Usu / Sarobetsu post-mined peatland
From left: Crater basin in 1986 and 2006. Cottongrass / Daylily

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Plants that derive, more or less, their nutrients (but not energy) from absorbing nutrients from animals represented by insects (Darwin 1875)

Adaptation to grow in nutrient-poor habitats, such as bogs and serpentine rocks

Organs for carnivore (形態)

insectivorous leaf (trap leaf, 捕虫葉): functioning as a trap that catches insects that it will digest for nutrients
insectivorous sac (捕虫嚢): a specific type of the insectivorous leaves that forms sac
Route: [sensitive hair (感毛/感覚毛) →] trap (罠) → digestive organs, such as utricle and stomach

Methods (how to trap)

pitfall traps

pitchers - pitcher plants

flypaper traps
snap traps (or forked trap), using trigger closing

lobster-pots or eel traps

bladder traps, using bladders or vesicula
+ complex traps

Species in the world

Table 1. Insectivrous plants in the world (ca 550 species, 18 genera, and 9 families). Number of species in Japan is shown in parentheses. Genera without asterisks mean that all species in these genera are insectivorous.
Family	Genus/Species
Byblidaceae	Byblis 2, Roridula 2
Droseraceae	Drosera 140 (7), Drosophyllum 1, Dionaea 1, Aldrovanda 1 (1)
Lentibulariaceae	Pinguicula 70 (2), Utricularia 213 (19), Genlisea 20
Sarraceniaceae	Serracenia 8, Darlingtonia 1, Heliamphora 6
Bromeliaceae	Brocchinia 2, Heliamphora* 6
Dioncophyllaceae	Triphyophyllum 1
Pedaliaceae	Ibicella *1
Nepenthaceae	Nepenthes 75 N. rafflesiana Jack (ウツボカズラ): insectivorous sac developing on the top of leaves. Poisonous plant. Native short shrubs in Malacca, Kalimantan (Borneo), Sumatra, etc.
Cephalotaceae	Cephnthes 1

Evolution (進化)

Carnivory evolved more than or equal to eight times in the angiosperms

trap designs, e.g., pitcher and flypaper, are analogous rather than homologous