Gurl! Stop Touching Me!

This is the Mimosa pudica. A plant that grows all over the place in South America. We used to grow one in the lab I worked in at JMU.

As you can see, this is a really badass plant. The minute you touch it, it will curl up and play dead. It will bounce back and look normal again once you leave it alone for a few minutes. Acting like this is possible because of ion channels, but I'm not going to get into that - it's kind of boring.

I am going to address my typical point - why does the plant act this way? Just like humans, plants will not waste energy doing something without a purpose.

Mimosa plants are very tasty plants. Animals see their lush bushes and think, jackpot! The animal will come over, take a big bite and start chewing. The plant obviously doesn't want to get eaten so it will curl up and fall over (play dead). By the time the animal is ready for another bite the plant will look like it has disappeared. Not wanting to waste time eating a shabby bush, the animal will leave.

Thanks to evolution, the mimosa learned a cute trick to stay alive.

Way to go, plants!