• elbucho@lemmy.world
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    7 hours ago

    I read an article several years ago that was arguing that blackberry plants should be classed as carnivores. The idea sounds absolutely absurd, but the more you squint at it, the more sense it makes. Blackberry bushes grow incredibly dense thickets of brambles, and those brambles snag and don’t let go easily. Shepherds in areas with blackberry bushes often have to rescue sheep that eat the blackberries and get stuck in the brambles. If they don’t get rescued, they’ll eventually die and decompose, thus adding a bunch of nitrogen and other useful chemicals to the soil which cause the plant to become larger and healthier.

    So while they don’t actively kill creatures like the venus fly trap or pitcher plants, they do grow in a way that can trap and kill animals, and they benefit hugely from the nutrients those animals provide.