More than four trigger hairs for VFT

16 years ago

I just checked out my North American plants very closely in preparation for dormancy and noticed my adult Flytrap, which occasionally produced four trigger hairs per lobe (a normal occurrance), is now producing four and even five trigger hairs per lobe more often than not. Interesting.

You can barely detect them here in these blurry close-ups. I fiddled with the photos as much as I could to make the trigger hairs visible. Both of these traps have 9 trigger hairs total. I guess they want to really know when something is on the leaf.

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Comments (5)

hero81
16 years ago
That's amazing.
It could be that it want's to triple its efforts on catching pray.
Or it can be evolution (if your plant continues to grow like that)

Hah.

Still amazing, though.
agentrdy
16 years ago
My question is do all of them work to trigger the trap? Maybe some are pseudo-triggers. Pretty amazing--I had one grow 4 triggers per lobe on just a few traps. It seems like since two or more grow closely in the center that they would easily catch water droplets better via water tension, leading to false triggering by stimulating 2+ at once.
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nepenthes_ceasar
16 years ago
weird
mutant_hybrid
Original Author
16 years ago
Agentrdy,

Yeah it could lead to potential false triggering, but I have rarely noted a trigger hair react to a drop of water unless the water drop is drastically different in temperature than the environment or falls with some force. Actually, one trap now has 10 trigger hairs. I hope it does not start saying... "FEED ME"
hero81
16 years ago
Closest theory: Evolution.

Indoor Evolution?
Mutation?
I don't know.