Which came first? plants or animals?

[PsychoSarah]

That's gross!

Yeah, it kinda is but they take care of more than just flies. Which is worse, a bunch of live spiders and other creepy crawlies in your house, or a bunch of dead ones? I find it a tad ironic that they actually can get at spiders better than flies.

If you put them outside, you don't have to deal with it, but I prefer to keep mine indoors.

Plus, the crazy flowers are worth it too.

 

[variant]

Than variant's question can take a hike.

If you did something like answer that question in the first place maybe.

It was pretty rhetorical though so who cares if you care to answer it.

 

[Split Rock]

Which is?

A eukaryote. We still are eukaryotes. You cannot escape your heredity.

 

[Split Rock]

Eukaroytes for the win, then.

Case closed.

Guess I was a little late....

 

[andy b]

I tried to grow a Venus fly trap as a kid i failed but thats another story.This POST has me thinking though how would a plant evolve to eat insects when you consider that plants where apparently around long before them

 

[Skaloop]

I tried to grow a Venus fly trap as a kid i failed but thats another story.This POST has me thinking though how would a plant evolve to eat insects when you consider that plants where apparently around long before them

It's quite simple. The Venus Flytrap would evolve to eat insects once insects were around.

 

[andy b]

It's quite simple. The Venus Flytrap would evolve to eat insects once insects were around.

i gathered that but how whats the stages ..

 

[Skaloop]

i gathered that but how whats the stages ..

Who knows exactly. We already know of plants evolved to attract insects. If one of those evolved a way to close their leves/petals around those insects (we have examples of plants that do that sort of thing) and then could trap insects in order to get sustenance as the insect decayed naturally (sort of like making its own fertilizer), then later evolved a method of dissolving the insects to more efficiently extract the nutrients and absorb them directly, that could lead to the sort of thing we see in the Venus Flytrap.

That's a top-of-my-head thing, though, and not meant to be an actual explanation. But I'd be interested in hearing any reasons why such a step-wise process couldn't work.

 

[PsychoSarah]

Who knows exactly. We already know of plants evolved to attract insects. If one of those evolved a way to close their leves/petals around those insects (we have examples of plants that do that sort of thing) and then could trap insects in order to get sustenance as the insect decayed naturally (sort of like making its own fertilizer), then later evolved a method of dissolving the insects to more efficiently extract the nutrients and absorb them directly, that could lead to the sort of thing we see in the Venus Flytrap.

That's a top-of-my-head thing, though, and not meant to be an actual explanation. But I'd be interested in hearing any reasons why such a step-wise process couldn't work.

Oh, we know that the half step can work, because sometimes plants have defects where the traps will be malformed and look half done, but they can still eat.

 

[keith99]

Who knows exactly. We already know of plants evolved to attract insects. If one of those evolved a way to close their leves/petals around those insects (we have examples of plants that do that sort of thing) and then could trap insects in order to get sustenance as the insect decayed naturally (sort of like making its own fertilizer), then later evolved a method of dissolving the insects to more efficiently extract the nutrients and absorb them directly, that could lead to the sort of thing we see in the Venus Flytrap.

That's a top-of-my-head thing, though, and not meant to be an actual explanation. But I'd be interested in hearing any reasons why such a step-wise process couldn't work.

Also consider plants have developed defenses against insects. Such a defense could lead to dinner time.

 

[PsychoSarah]

Also consider plants have developed defenses against insects. Such a defense could lead to dinner time.

There are a few plants that actively kill insects which do not digest them... Yet

 

[Strathos]

It shouldn't have been in the trap that long, they leave behind the exoskeleton and only digest the soft insides. You leaving it in there would have given the plant a deadly fungal infection. It died because you didn't look up how to properly care for them first -_-

Well the trap never opened back up, and I didn't feel like trying to pry it open...

 

[Skaloop]

Well the trap never opened back up, and I didn't feel like trying to pry it open...

Just curious, but why would you get one if you didn't want to do what was necessary to care for it?

I get that it may be "just" a plant, but if you are going to willingly and purposefully take on the responsibility for a living creature why would you not make sure that it was properly tended to?

 

[Styx87]

Dionaea muscipula (Venus Flytrap) happens to be among my favorite plants so I decided to look this one up. Unfortunately they don't fossilize well so there's no record of them that I'm aware of. But their DNA has been compared and we have a family tree, but that still doesn't tell how, so here's a few ideas. D.muscipula's snap trap isn't unique, it's shared by one other plant Aldrovanda. D.muscipula is related to Drosera and many species exhibit rapid leaf and tentacle movement. But larger insects are strong enough to escape the glue of flypaper traps. However larger insects are also a larger source of nutrition so it would be beneficial to be able to trap them.

• D.muscipula may have had a leaf arrangement similar to D.Falconeri earlier on and adapted more vertical stalks to make it more difficult for pray to escape.
• Natural selection may have then selected for plants with shorter reaction times selecting for plants that could close their traps faster making them less dependent on the glue aspect.
• The traps may have then re-adapted the inner tentacles into triggers to prevent wasting energy on falling debris or rain drops since that energy would be needed to grow larger leaves and faster response times. Allowing them to distinguish live insects from everything else.
• Further re-adapting the hairs into "teeth" and triggers as it's previous function is no longer necessary to feeding due to the fact that it's less reliant on the glue and now more dependent on the "snap".
• Finally it might have developed the depressed digestive glands instead of using the dews in the stalk.

*I labeled the first two images wrong, I meant to label them "D.Falconeri" (Drosera Falconeri).

 

[Strathos]

Just curious, but why would you get one if you didn't want to do what was necessary to care for it?

I get that it may be "just" a plant, but if you are going to willingly and purposefully take on the responsibility for a living creature why would you not make sure that it was properly tended to?

I got it as a souvenir from some botanical garden place when I was like 11 years old. I vaguely recall an instruction book saying that after it digested the trap would re-open by itself but it never did.

 

[PsychoSarah]

Well the trap never opened back up, and I didn't feel like trying to pry it open...

When that happens, you cut the trap off.

 

[PsychoSarah]

I got it as a souvenir from some botanical garden place when I was like 11 years old. I vaguely recall an instruction book saying that after it digested the trap would re-open by itself but it never did.

Out of curiosity, did it eat, say, a firefly? Because they are poisonous to them.

 

[PsychoSarah]

Dionaea muscipula (Venus Flytrap) happens to be among my favorite plants so I decided to look this one up. Unfortunately they don't fossilize well so there's no record of them that I'm aware of. But their DNA has been compared and we have a family tree, but that still doesn't tell how, so here's a few ideas. D.muscipula's snap trap isn't unique, it's shared by one other plant Aldrovanda. D.muscipula is related to Drosera and many species exhibit rapid leaf and tentacle movement. But larger insects are strong enough to escape the glue of flypaper traps. However larger insects are also a larger source of nutrition so it would be beneficial to be able to trap them.

• D.muscipula may have had a leaf arrangement similar to D.Falconeri earlier on and adapted more vertical stalks to make it more difficult for pray to escape.
• Natural selection may have then selected for plants with shorter reaction times selecting for plants that could close their traps faster making them less dependent on the glue aspect.
• The traps may have then re-adapted the inner tentacles into triggers to prevent wasting energy on falling debris or rain drops since that energy would be needed to grow larger leaves and faster response times. Allowing them to distinguish live insects from everything else.
• Further re-adapting the hairs into "teeth" and triggers as it's previous function is no longer necessary to feeding due to the fact that it's less reliant on the glue and now more dependent on the "snap".
• Finally it might have developed the depressed digestive glands instead of using the dews in the stalk.

*I labeled the first two images wrong, I meant to label them "D.Falconeri" (Drosera Falconeri).

A fellow carnivorous plant enthusiast?

 

[SkyWriting]

Sort of like sponges becoming animals, eventually developing brains and then becoming man, who produced airplanes, ipods and computers. Sounds like science fiction to me.

Biology and information science both follow the outline of entopy.
Things cannot become more complicated or more intelligent.

 

[lasthero]

Biology and information science both follow the outline of entopy.
Things cannot become more complicated or more intelligent.

Yes, they can.