Evolution
The Venus Flytrap's evolution was the product of a "Hobson's choice" in which plants that did not evolve nutrient-capturing abilities in nitrogen and phosphorus-poor environments would not have survived. Their carnivorous traps were evolutionarily selected to allow these organisms to survive their harsh environments.
Read more about this topic: Venus Flytrap
Famous quotes containing the word evolution:
“Historians will have to face the fact that natural selection determined the evolution of cultures in the same manner as it did that of species.”
—Konrad Lorenz (1903–1989)
“The more specific idea of evolution now reached is—a change from an indefinite, incoherent homogeneity to a definite, coherent heterogeneity, accompanying the dissipation of motion and integration of matter.”
—Herbert Spencer (1820–1903)
“What we think of as our sensitivity is only the higher evolution of terror in a poor dumb beast. We suffer for nothing. Our own death wish is our only real tragedy.”
—Mario Puzo (b. 1920)