Waterwheel: an underwater plant
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How long does a trap take to digest its prey?
How many traps might a waterwheel have?
Waterwheels are the only other plants that use spring traps like the Venus fly trap, except that these plants float around underwater just under the surface, and look like hairy green caterpillars.
They live in swamps and lakes in parts of Europe, Africa, India, Japan, and Australia.
Waterwheels eat water fleas and other small animals.
When a tiny animal touches 1 or 2 bristles of a trap, the trap snaps shut, just like the Venus flytrap.
It takes about 2-3 days for a plant to digest its prey.
Each waterwheel plant can have over one hundred traps, arranged in eights.
Their genus is Aldrovanda vesiculosa. This plant is related to the Venus flytrap.