Carnivorous Plant: The Secret Behind the Venus Flytrap’s Deadly Trap Finally Uncovered

Recent experiments have finally shed light on the obscure physiological mechanism that allows the jaws of a famous carnivorous plant to snap shut in less than a second on its winged prey.

Lightning Closure

The Venus flytrap (Dionaea muscipula) releases a nectar with an intoxicating scent that lures insects, completely unaware of the grim fate awaiting them. Given the speed with which this trap closes, the renowned Charles Darwin had suspected that these carnivorous plants possessed a nervous and muscular system. Published in the journal Science, new research reveals a very different mechanism.

Yoël Forterre, from CNRS, and his colleagues indeed discovered that the “zip closure” of its jaws was the result of softening of the cells on their surface. “The fact that plant cell walls can modify their mechanical properties so rapidly was truly surprising,” notes the researcher.

To reach this conclusion, the team used a tiny metallic tip, or nanoindenter, to poke the outer surface of the leaves of D. muscipula and measure pressure changes. These leaves had been carefully immobilized beforehand with dental adhesive to prevent the trap from closing.

“With the touch of a single drop of water, it would not reopen until the next day,” she notes. “If it is an insect, its digestion and the dissolution of the skeleton would take weeks.”

It was widely thought that the movement of water through Venus flytrap cells caused the trap to close, but detailed experiments have led scientists to propose an alternative mechanism https://t.co/mSYVLTIauO

— New Scientist (@newscientist) June 15, 2026

Cellular Softening

Earlier research had shown that simply bending the cilia on the lobes of the trap leaves triggered the propagation of an electrical signal from one side of the jaws to the other in less than a tenth of a second.

These new studies indicate an almost immediate softening of the lobes at the cellular level, rather than a “deflation” related to the movement of water molecules, which had been the dominant hypothesis until now.

“Plants are simply incredible,” exults Forterre, who has been closely studying D. muscipula for two decades. “They can perceive their environment, respond, and communicate with one another.”

Earlier, researchers had described a plant becoming carnivorous when deprived of a certain nutrient.