Snappy meals.

To catch a meal that can fly away in the blink of an eye, a Venus flytrap has to be speedy. Scientists have recently discovered how this plant's taco-shell-shaped leaves snap shut in only one tenth of a second.

An international team of researchers used high-speed photography to capture the moves of the flytrap, Dionaea muscipula (DIE-oh-NAY-ah muhs-KIH-pew-la). Their findings: The leaves of the plant's trap are normally curved outward, or are convex. When an insect lands, the outer surface of the leaves changes shape slightly, creating elastic potential energy, or stored energy due to being stretched. When the stored energy is released, the leaves suddenly snap into a concave (curved inward) shape--trapping the insect inside.

"You can see the same action in a tennis ball. If you cut [the ball] open and turn it inside out, it immediately snaps back," says Jacques Dumais, a biologist on the research team. "It's certainly a great way to catch a little treat."

To learn why Venus flytraps snack on insects, check out this Web site from the Botanical Society of America. Includes links to descriptions of other carnivorous plants: www.botany.org/bsa/misc/carn.html