Fly Papers Fact #6

It's not our usual kind of fact ... but did you know you can take a photo of yourself reading a book, enter it in a competition, and be in to win a box of chocolate fish?

We like this kind of fact.

More info at the Booksellers NZ website.

Fly Papers Fact #5

Bladderworts look innocent, but beneath the surface of the soil or water they grow in, they set the most sophisticated traps in the carnivorous plant world - little vacuum sacs with trapdoors! When a bug triggers the trap, the door opens, the bug is sucked in, and the door shuts behind it, all in milliseconds.

New Zealand has several native bladderwort species. More about our native carnivorous plants here.

Photo of NZ bladderwort copyright Phil Garnock-Jones.

Fly Papers Fact #4

When they're not being toilets OR drinking bowls (see Fly Papers Fact #3), Nepenthes plants can trap some decent-sized prey - lizards, rats, mice ...

Here's one that ate a bird.

Fly Papers Fact #3

What a useful kind of carnivorous plant the Nepenthes is. If it's not acting as a toilet, it's offering its services as a water bowl. Monkeys in rainforests have been seen drinking from these plants' water-filled pitchers. Hence their nickname - Monkey Cup.

See a whole gallery of Nepenthes!

Fly Papers Fact #2

Compared to some countries, New Zealand doesn't have many native carnivorous plant species.  But we do have amazing native sundews.

Sundews are a kind of carnivorous plant with rounded or tentacle-like leaves, covered in hairs. On those hairs are droplets of oozy, glistening, sticky stuff - sticky enough to trap insects - which the plant then slowly digests.

More about NZ carnivorous plants here!

Fly Papers Fact #1

Some very large carnivorous plants feed on animal poo. They grow pitchers that make perfect toilet bowls for small mammals.

More about that here!