Carnivorous plant rediscovered in the Isle of Man Published duration 30 April 2013

image caption The bladderwort was found at the Curraghs in the north of the island

A carnivorous plant thought to have been extinct in the Isle of Man for more than 15 years has been discovered growing in the north of the island.

The Bladderworts plant, last recorded on the island in the 1998, was found in a pond in the Curraghs by a Manx Wildlife Trust officer on Monday.

The underwater plant uses a suction trap to gobble up passing prey in an instant, which it slowly digests.

A MWT spokesman said: "It is tremendously exciting."

The Manx Wildlife Trust's Wildflowers of Mann Project Manager, Andree Dubbeldam, said: "It is a species which has not been recorded in the Isle of Man for more than 15 years it is a remarkable discovery."

'Flowering specimen'

The aquatic plant can survive in very nutrient poor pools by becoming carnivorous, feeding on small water fleas and other tiny water invertebrates.

Mr Dubbeldam added: "They capture their prey in small sacs (the bladders), where they are slowly digested and nutrients extracted. Because they are able to provide their own nutrients bladderworts survive entirely without roots".

There are four species of Bladderwort native to the British Isles, of which at least two have been native to the Isle of Man.

Mr Dubbeldam said without a flowering specimen it is not yet known whether the species is the common bladderwort or the greater bladderwort, which he believes is more likely.

The species went into decline on the Isle of Man because their main wetland habitat (the Ballaugh Curragh) slowly progressed from an open wetland bog to a dense willow woodland.

The MWT now hope to work with Manx National Heritage, which owns the area, to help protect the "tiny but significant population".

The Wildflowers of Mann project conducts dozens of rare species surveys every year to get a better picture of which plants are rare, threatened or extinct.