By: Jackson Liu
There are tons of man-eating plants in pop culture. For example, in the movie Little Shop of Horrors, a giant Venus Flytrap with shark-like teeth needs fresh human blood to grow. Also, the Piranha Plants in Mario want nothing more than to make a snack out of the two plumbers. And in The Addams Family, Morticia owns a plant called the “African Strangler” who has an annoying habit of biting humans. Many of these plants are based on real carnivorous plants, although the 800 or so carnivorous plants around the globe don’t eat humans.
A real giant man-eating plant would need to save a lot of energy. “The depictions in Mario Brothers and Little Shop of Horrors seem less realistic,” says Kaddeen Gilbert, a botanist who studies tropical pitcher plants at Michigan State University. “Those monstrous plants chomp, flail their vines and even run after people. It takes a lot of energy for fast movement.” Both of these fictional plants are based on one carnivorous plant in particular: the Venus Flytrap. A flytrap relies on two jaw-like leaves to catch prey. When an insect lands on one of the leaves, it touches tiny hairs that make the leaves snap shut. However, triggering these hairs produces electrical signals that use up valuable energy. More energy is then needed to produce the enzymes needed to digest the plant’s prey. A giant flytrap would need massive amounts of energy to move electrical signals across its giant leaves and also produce enough enzymes to digest a human.
Another scientist named Barry Davis argues that a man-eating plant wouldn’t be able to move. He studies carnivorous plants at the University of California, Davis. All plants have cells lined with rigid cell walls, Rice notes. This helps make them stronger, but also makes them terrible at bending or moving. If a human does fall in a carnivorous plant, digesting them might be a problem. The extra nutrients from undigested prey would benefit the growth of bacteria, and the corpse inside the plant would begin to rot. That bacteria could then end up infecting the plant, causing it to rot too.
Pitcher plants and Venus Flytraps also offer too many chances for a human to escape. They could escape simply by punching a hole in the plant or ripping it apart because plant walls are very soft and flimsy and easily breakable. However, one type of carnivorous plant could potentially stop humans from escaping: the Sundew Plant. The Sundew Plant has leaves covered in tiny hairs with glue-like substances that stop insects from escaping once they land on it. The best plant for trapping humans would be a giant Sundew Plant that carpets the floor with tentacle-like leaves. Each leaf would have very sticky and globby liquid on it. It also would have to be tear resistant so that the more you struggle in it, the more you get stuck until you won’t be able to properly move your limbs because they are covered in sticky stuff. Then, strong acids would come out and slowly dissolve your body.
While the Sundew’s sweet smell might attract insects, it most likely won’t be enough to lure humans inside. The reward would need to be worth the risk for a human to willingly go near it, like maybe some incredibly rare resource or a fruit tree filled with big juicy fruits. In conclusion, giant man-eating plants may never exist, but we can still dream!
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