Steer wrestling, a practice credited to legendary cowboy and rodeo star Bill Pickett, usually involves leaping onto a steer from the back of a specially trained horse. At the Madison

Put ramekins on a baking sheet. Bake for 25-35 minutes, until puffed and golden. Remove from oven, and let stand for 5 minutes. With a flexible spatula, remove strata to

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Don’t be deceived like the spider and the ant: This plant is a predator, designed to kill. Drawn by glistening nectar glands, an insect touches off trigger-like plant hairs rooted

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Madison County Championship Rodeo

Don’t be deceived like the spider and the ant: This plant is a predator, designed to kill. Drawn by glistening nectar glands, an insect touches off trigger-like plant hairs rooted

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Don’t be deceived like the spider and the ant: This plant is a predator, designed to kill. Drawn by glistening nectar glands, an insect touches off trigger-like plant hairs rooted

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Venus Flytrap, Native to Green Swamp

The delicate plant may be deadly to some insects, but its future is so imperiled that collecting the herbaceous hunter in the wild is a felony in North Carolina.

by T. Edward Nickens
venus flytrap

Don’t be deceived like the spider and the ant: This plant is a predator, designed to kill. Drawn by glistening nectar glands, an insect touches off trigger-like plant hairs rooted in a hinged leaf blade. There’s no escape: Electricity pulses through the plant at four inches per second. Special cells react, tripping the leaf trap that can snap shut in less than one-tenth of a second. If that weren’t horrifying enough, the Venus flytrap then begins its denouement: Digesting its prey with specialized enzymes. Stewed bug, served cold. Yummy.

Venus flytraps love the Carolinas: The carnivorous plants grow natively in the coastal bogs around Wilmington.

This story was published on Apr 20, 2016

T. Edward Nickens

T. Edward Nickens

Nickens is editor-at-large of Field & Stream and the author of The Total Outdoorsman Manual. His articles also appear in Smithsonian and Audubon magazines.