Guest Posted August 7, 2016 Share Posted August 7, 2016 When I went to shoot this venus fly trap under UV I didn't actually expect to see much of anything. As it turns out though, it looks like this meat eater might just be using a trick to lure victims into its mouth/leaves. The reflective spots and dark stripes along the rim of the leaves almost remind me of a deep-sea predatory fish which uses little light lures to attract its meals. Or it could be coincidence. Either way it was surprisingly cool to find this. This makes me wonder how many other plants may have some kind of UV signature in parts other than the flowers. I did try also imaging a Sundew, Pitcher Plant, and Bladderwort - none of which showed anything particular under UV. Link to comment
OlDoinyo Posted August 7, 2016 Share Posted August 7, 2016 Interesting.. You might check out http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1469-8137.1985.tb02864.x/pdf; it seems that this has been noticed before. Link to comment
Guest Posted August 7, 2016 Share Posted August 7, 2016 Well, how about that. Thirty one years later (almost to the day) and I just made the same old discovery. I guess I'm going to have to step it up a notch! Link to comment
Andy Perrin Posted August 7, 2016 Share Posted August 7, 2016 Your photos are better, though! :P Link to comment
OlDoinyo Posted August 8, 2016 Share Posted August 8, 2016 Your photo is definitely better. It looks as though some pitcher plants might be good subject matter--maybe you didn't happen to get the right species. Link to comment
enricosavazzi Posted August 8, 2016 Share Posted August 8, 2016 That's interesting. The UV signature might be just a consequence of thickening/stiffening of the epithelia along the edge of the leaves and the spines, which is necessary to prevent the escape of trapped insects. Or it might have started evolving this way and then taken an additional function of providing UV visual cues similar to those of flowers, which might increase the attractiveness to insects. We won't really know until someone starts exposing artificially altered specimens versus controls to insects, and logging the number and length of insect visits. Link to comment
Andrea B. Posted August 9, 2016 Share Posted August 9, 2016 Well that is just totally cool, Mark !!!! Very interesting to see. Enrico has suggested a terrific experiment for some enterprising graduate student to accomplish. "Paint over" the bright spots and see if the insects are still lured to the plant. Thirty one years later (almost to the day) and I just made the same old discovery.That doesn't mean it is not valuable to have confirmation. :D It is always good to repeat such tests.I would imagine that if we thoroughly searched the scientific literature we would find a multitude of UV subjects already recorded in someone's experiment. After all, scientific UV photography was already being performed in 1891. See:Knuth, P. (1891a). Die Einwirkung der Blütenfarben auf der photographische Platte. Biol. Centralbl. 48, 160-165.Knuth, P. (1891b). Weytere Beobachtungen uber die Anlockungsmittel der Blüten von Sycos angulata L. and Bryonica dioica L. Biol Centralbl. 48, 314-318. Link to comment
nfoto Posted August 12, 2016 Share Posted August 12, 2016 Sarracenia mitchelliana x leucophylla. UV Link to comment
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