Insect-eating Venus flytraps thrive in the Carolinas as hikers peek into their native ecosystem

CAROLINA BEACH, N.C. (AP) — Park ranger Jesse Anderson leads dozens of people on a weekly hike in North Carolina to see some of the most unique living things in the world — plants that supplement the nutrients they get from sunlight by digesting ants, flies and spiders.

But the Venus flytraps aren't like the human-size, ravenous and cruel Audrey in "Little Shop of Horrors."

In the wild, Venus flytraps are the size of a lima bean and pose no harm to anything other than insects. Their special hairs snap their leaves together when brushed — but only twice in about 20 seconds or less to reduce the amount of false alarms by dust or rain.

Once inside, the insect is doomed to become plant food, Anderson said.

“It continues to trigger those hairs and the trap slowly closes and eventually starts releasing digestive enzymes to start breaking down the insect. And because they’re in nutrient-poor environments, they supplement their food with insects,” Anderson said.

Anderson's hike at Carolina Beach State Park on the southeast North Carolina coast also showcases other carnivorous plants. There are vase-shaped pitcher plants with liquid at the bottom that traps insects, then digests them. Butterworts and sundews attract insects with glistening leaves, then secrete an adhesive to trap them in place. Bladderworts work similarly to Venus flytraps.

And the hike is one of the few places to see Venus flytraps. The plant only grows in 12 counties in southeast North Carolina near Wilmington and a few nearby places in South Carolina, which made the organism the state's official carnivorous plant in 2023.

Now is an especially good time to take that hike. Venus flytraps bloom from about mid-May to mid-June, Anderson said.

The flytrap is a fragile plant that needs fire to survive. Wildfires in the pine forests where they grow clear off the denser overgrowth to provide the abundant sunlight the plants need.

They face two big enemies — poachers and development.

Harvesting the plants without permission is a felony in North Carolina and a misdemeanor in South Carolina. In 2016, a man was sentenced to 17 months in prison for taking nearly 1,000 Venus flytraps from game land in Hampstead, North Carolina.

And the flytraps live in one of the fastest-growing parts of the U.S., where neighborhoods and businesses have been built over their habitats. Most of the plants can now be found in preserves and other undisturbed areas.

Scientists counted only about 300,000 flytraps in the Carolinas several years ago.

While Anderson's hike is one of the few ways to see Venus flytraps in their natural environment, he said commercially grown plants can be found around in greenhouses and plant stores around the world and can thrive in homes in the right conditions

“They like nutrient-poor soils, and also they can’t stand typical well water or tap water. So they need things like rainwater or distilled water or versus osmosis,” Anderson said.

Venus flytraps need abundant sunlight and soils that are moist but not drenched. And they don't have to eat bugs if they can get enough nutrients from photosynthesis.

Please don't feed them hamburger meat — that's not what they eat. And try not to trigger the leaves shut without something to digest. That takes a lot of energy the plant needs to replace.

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Jeffrey Collins in Columbia, South Carolina, contributed to this story.