Reddit users got a close-up view of an unusual predator-prey moment: A sundew caught a grub, but then it escaped.
What happened?
Posted to the forum r/NatureIsF******Lit, the video picked up nearly 3,000 upvotes and 180 comments, with people discussing carnivorous plant biology, evolution, and the insect's escape.
Viewers in the thread identified the plant as a sundew, a member of the Drosera genus known for shiny, adhesive tentacles. The post itself carried a terse caption: "This plant eats meat."
(Click here if the embedded video does not appear.)
The grub first appears to get stuck in the sundew's mucilage, the glue-like material the plant uses to catch prey, and then the trichome-covered leaves curl inward. Even so, the insect ultimately wriggles loose instead of becoming the plant's meal.
Why does it matter?
By snaring insects with sticky droplets and then secreting digestive enzymes to absorb nutrients outside their bodies, sundews show how life can adapt when soil offers little. The clip captures the trapping process as it starts, while also making clear that not every prey stays caught.
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These unusual plants depend on fragile wetland habitats that are increasingly shaped by human activity. Drainage, development, pollution, and the warming climate can alter the nutrient-poor bogs and marshes where sundews thrive, while pesticide use and habitat loss can reshape insect populations.
The same activity that transforms landscapes for people is also changing the predator-prey interactions unfolding within them.
What are people saying?
Among the replies, one commenter wrote: "Nature is an arms race. For every attack, evolution finds a defense."
"But in all seriousness, don't do that to your sundew. It costs the plant a lot of energy to move like this, and with its prey escaping it now wasted resources it needs for survival," another user warned. "So if you feed a sundew by hand (please don't) to show off its cool moves, do it with prey that's already dead."
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