The effect — hundreds of glistening droplets on red-tinged leaves scattered across the wet rock — is visually unlike anything in a typical lowland forest.

The bladderworts (Utricularia) are perhaps the most mechanically sophisticated of the three groups.

They operate using tiny, bladder-shaped traps that maintain a partial vacuum.

When a small aquatic invertebrate brushes against the trigger hairs at the trap entrance, the trap door springs open, water and prey are sucked in, and the door snaps shut in as little as ten milliseconds — one of the fastest movements in the plant kingdom.

These three plant families have arrived at similar ecological solutions — carnivory — through completely independent evolutionary pathways.