Back in 1875, Charles Darwin wrote that the Venus flytrap "is one of the most wonderful plants in the world."

And, I'd have to agree!

Plants have no nerves or muscles, yet this plant shuts its traps with incredible speed.

Darwin was mystified by the Venus flytrap - he didn't understand how it moves.

But now we know that it's weirdly similar to how your brain cells communicate with each other.

An action potential is how a brain cell, or neuron, gets information from one end to the other.

If a strong chemical signal is received at one end, it causes the neuron to open up pores that change the charge of the neuron.

This change in charge flows down the length until it reaches the end, causing it to release chemical information from the other end to the next neurons in the system.

An action potential at the junction of your motor neurons and muscle fibres cause the muscles to contract.

Your neurons send messages electrochemically, which can lead to movement.

And this is where we enter flytrap territory.

So Anna from Gross Science.

We bought some carnivorous plants, including two Venus Flytraps, so we can take a closer look.

I'm very excited Me too!

The Venus flytrap has these tiny trigger hairs, and when an insect touches two or more trigger hairs within 20 seconds, sensory cells at the base of the hair generate an electrical signal that acts as an action potential, which activates the motor cells.

And the leaf closes.

This process looks just like a nerve impulse.

But it doesn't result in a muscle movement like we have - the science behind the leaf closing is pretty fascinating.

Here's Anna again, with more.

So what happens is that when the hairs get triggered they send a little electrical signal to the midrib of the leaf and that causes pores to open in the leaf, which pass water from one part of the leaf to another.

And it's that change in water pressure that makes the book snap shut.

Then the leaf only partially closes; but it traps the bug in using these cilia, which are these jail-bar-like structures on top.

And once it finally determines that what it's caught is actually an insect, it releases all of it's digestive fluids and starts breaking down the bug.

Pretty tasty!

Now, of course our nervous system is really complex, and without brain cells, the flytrap's system is pretty basic.

While flytraps don't have brain cells, they have sensory receptors, ion channels, which control the flow of electrically charged chemicals, and of course, action potentials.

Venus flytraps can process information.

So flytraps respond to their environment in a way that's kind of similar to those basic neural responses that we have.

Imagine you feel something that's really painful, or hot or cold, and you flinch away from it, that's a really automatic, kind of natural response that we have.

And the flytraps respond to threats in their own environments in similar ways.

The coolest thing about them is that you can measure the action potential of a Venus flytrap, just like you can measure the action potential in your muscle cells.

That is so cool!

Yeah, I think the flytrap is my favourite plant.

I think that my favourite plant is actually the bladderwort, which is a different type of carnivorous plant.

It's kind of amazing how many different types of carnivorous plants there are in the world, each with their own ingenious way of trapping prey.

And I had never heard of that plant!

So it you want find out more about that and some other really cool ones, follow us over to Gross Science.

lly awesome plant action over there.

Thanks!