There are several plants that are considered predators, meaning they consume flesh to obtain much-needed nutrients not found in soil. These plants use devious, innovative, and even predatory means to ensnare their prey. Some of the most popular carnivorous plants include:

• Venus Flytrap: This plant captures prey with its deadly allure. The leaves of the Venus flytrap snap shut if its tiny hairs are brushed twice by an unsuspecting bug.

• Pitcher Plant: This plant uses modified leaves that form a tube-like structure to lure insects, then trap and digest them. Found in the southern United States, the yellow pitcher plant is a particularly striking example of the species, which can grow to be a meter in height. Insects are drawn in by their vibrant color, as well as by a nectar that also contains a toxin that incapacitates them.

• Sundew: This plant has sticky, glandular hairs on its leaves that trap insects. The hairs secrete a sticky substance that immobilizes the prey, and then the plants digestive enzymes break down the insect.

• Butterwort: This plant has gluey hairs that snag insects until the plants digestive juices do their work.

• Bladderwort: This plant lives in the water and traps tiny aquatic animals in its cup-shaped leaves.

• Waterwheel Plant: This is a rootless, free-floating, aquatic herb found in the states of West Bengal and Manipur, and is known as malacca jhangi in the local (Bangla) vernacular. It belongs to a category of steel-trap plants, named after the wedge-shaped tool.

Carnivorous plants are not exempt from the consequences of large-scale deforestation, habitat loss, degradation of soil, and land pollution, all of which are threatening their survival.