About the “prespa monster”, as he calls a rare, small carnivorous plant that traps its food in 10 to 20 milliseconds, a researcher will give information at the 18th Panhellenic Congress of the Hellenic Botanical Society, which starts at noon at the Research Results Dissemination Center ( KEDEA) and is implemented under the auspices of the Biology Department of AUTH and in collaboration with the Laboratory of Systematic Botany and Phytogeography of the Biology Department of AUTH.

Almost invisible, ‘like the Loch Ness monster’

“In my paper I named one of the rarest carnivorous plants in Greece, Aldrovanda vesiculosa (Droseraceae), “prespa monster”, because on the one hand it is carnivorous and on the other hand, as… the Loch Ness monster, they cannot see it” he says in Athenaikos / Macedonian News Agency the researcher Fanourios-Nikolaos Sakellarakis, who, together with Patrick Grillas, are partners in the Society for the Protection of Prespa and in the context of research on reed beds, found themselves in front of the carnivorous population.

This specific plant has been tried by many colleagues to locate it over time and they have failed because it is very rare and in a special habitat because it is a floating plant, i.e. it has no roots and floats in the water. It does not exist anywhere else in Greece and the only population of the species is located in Prespa”, explains Mr. Sakellarakis.

The plant was originally collected by Bulgarian botanists in the Axios delta, in the first half of 1900, so there is also a relevant historical record, but since the area has now been converted to rice cultivation, the specific population disappeared. In 1985, the botanist Georgios Pavlidis, who was studying the flora of Prespa, identified it and included it in his plant collection, which he gave to the Society for the Protection of Prespa, where botanists saw it in 2011, searched and located it in a location in Prespa .

“From 2017 until 2021, in field sampling of reedbeds for the program “Actions for the protection of waterfowl in Mikri Prespa: contributing to the adaptation of ecosystems to climate change and creating benefits for the local community”, we identified the plant in 8 locations in the National Park of Prespa, in reedbeds that have a sufficient water height” explains the researcher.

Small but with speed… Formula!

Another special feature of this small rare carnivorous plant, which does not catch the eye of the ignorant, is that its trap makes one of the fastest plant movements ever recorded in the plant kingdom.

“We have scientific data showing that the Aldrovanda vesiculosa trap is closed in 10 to 20 milliseconds by ‘trapping’ and eating small larvae, that is the eggs of insects present in aquatic ecosystems,” says Mr. Sakellarakis, adding that the species has assessed as critically endangered in the newly updated Red List of Threatened Plants and Fungi of Greece, which includes the risk assessments for approximately 11,500 species.