Carnivorous plant
plant that traps and consumes animals or protozoans
Carnivorous plants are plants that derive some or most of their nutrients from trapping and consuming animals or protozoans, typically insects and other arthropods, and occasionally small mammals and birds. They have adapted to grow in waterlogged sunny places where the soil is thin or poor in nutrients, especially nitrogen, such as acidic bogs.
They can be found on all continents except Antarctica, as well as many Pacific islands. In 1875, Charles Darwin published Insectivorous Plants, the first treatise to recognize the significance of carnivory in plants, describing years of his research.
True carnivory is believed to have evolved independently at least 12 times in five different orders of flowering plants, and is represented by more than a dozen genera. This classification includes at least 583 species that attract, trap, and kill prey, absorbing the resulting available nutrients. Venus flytraps (Dionaea muscipula), pitcher plants, and bladderworts (Utricularia spp.) can be seen as exemplars of key traits genetically associated with carnivory: trap leaf development, prey digestion, and nutrient absorption.
There are at least 800 species of carnivorous plants. The number of known species has increased by approximately 3 species per year since the year 2000. Additionally, over 300 protocarnivorous plant species in several genera show some but not all of these characteristics.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Carnivorous plant” as plant that traps and consumes animals or protozoans. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
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The subject matters to the science & nature register because the source frames it as plant that traps and consumes animals or protozoans. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
Stable identifiers, scientific names and standards terminology offer the best bridge between this overview and specialist evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 18, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q18240. The Library of Congress control number is sh85066669. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1875 and 2000.
Scientific names, classifications and consensus can change while older terminology persists in catalogues and historical literature. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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This entry incorporates text from “Carnivorous plant” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.