'Meat Eating Plants' on Display at Miller Nature Preserve

 Hate bugs but love plants? Or maybe you’re just a nature lover looking for something a little different?

Bugs Beware, Plants on the Prowl display of carnivorous plants opens today, May 17 at the Miller Nature Conservatory in Avon and will be available for viewing 10 a.m. – 6 p.m. until Sept. 5. The preserve is celebrating its second anniversary this month.

Included in the display are Venus Fly Traps, sundews and pitcher plants.

Naturalist Leslie McNutt said the although the conservatory has been open two years and while it has always had a few of the plants, this is the first time the center will have a major carnivorous plant display. 

“We have been working hard on interactive activities to make this display one that both adults and children will learn from and enjoy,” McNutt said. “The Venus fly trap is probably the best known of the carnivorous plants because of shows like Little Shop of Horrors and the fact that you can see the trap close around an insect. 

“The colors on the pitcher plants and the size of some of the plants make them remarkable too.”

In nature, carnivorous plants live in a bog area and the soil lacks oxygen, which the bugs provide.

They are able to make food otherwise because the have green leaves.

Pitcher plants, which resemble goblets, stores a sweet-smelling juice which lures an unsuspecting insect into its mouth. Insects the go inside are unable to climb out and they flail in the liquid until they run out of energy. The juice in the plant slowly digests the insect, much like the digestive fluids in ones stomach.

Sundews catch insects by having a sticky, glistening substance that looks like nectar. Insects get stuck and can’t get out.

Venus flytraps catch food in traps which have trigger hairs. The trap closes around the bug and then digests it. (Watch the video of a the Venus flytrap closing over a bug.)

There is a $2 admission fee to the center.