Hartmeyer Fleischfressende Pflanzen GB-Start 2021

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Our movies are non-profit productions to promote the knowledge on CP in an entertaining and science-based fashion.

All photos/videos are
protected by copyright.

Siggi & Irmgard

Siggi&Irmgard_46.Hochzeitstag-Schwanen

Our 46th wedding anniversary (2025)

We mourn the loss of Hans Breuer, who passed away unexpectedly in December 2024. His last book inspired many readers.

RIP Hans.

A Greenhorn Naturalist in Borneo - Cover

A Greenhorn Naturalist in Borneo by Hans Breuer.

Review by Siegfried R. H. Hartmeyer (2024). Carnivorous Plant Newsletter Vol. 53/2: 115-117.

Obituary

Prof. Dr. Stephen E. Williams† 3.4.2024

Dear Steve RIP

Venus Flytrap:
1-Year Timelapse !!
Steve's last Dionaea project.

2 more cooperations with
Stephen Williams:

Prey Capture by the
Venus Flytrap

Dionaea sort out
small animals

Drosera, Nepenthes &
Triphyophyllum in Winter 2025

The still young history of catapulting sundews.

English subtitles provided.

Invasive Spider:
"Nosferatu"
in Weil am Rhein

Zoropsis spinimana - Artikel Weiler Zeitung 10.9.22

(Zoropsis spinimana, also Nosferatu spider) in Weil am Rhein. Weiler Zeitung, Oberbadisches Volksblatt und Markgräfler Tageblatt 10.9.2022.

Carnivorous Plant Videos

(178)

Simply click on the thumbs and watch it on YouTube.

Siggi mit Stefan Raab bei TV total (2002)

Siggi at TV total

Saurier-Alarm in Basel_Thumb-2_new

Dinosaur-Alert in Basel.
Escape from Jurassic World

ICPS Vienna 2024

Russian Bear in the CP-Garden
WCPD - Ingenious Traps

Ingenious Traps.
Our Film for the WCPD.

Nepenthes pervillei: Rotating inflorescence.

Nepenthes reinwardtiana:
Sexy Eyes!

Bananas, Hail, Mimosa & CP

1st movie. Morocco 1978.

Mice trap Nepenthes

Amano Shrimps vs. Algae

Nepenthes bicalcarata
Pollination

Mantis versus Sceliphron

Muscleman Catapult Trap

The Chemistry of Sundews

Vegetarian Carnivores

The Function of Snap-Tentacles

Drosera glanduligera Catapult-Ontogenesis

D. rotundifolia
Tentacle Dimorphism

Drosera hartmeyerorum

Catapulting Pygmy Drosera

Drosera hartmeyerorum
Emergences as
residual light amplifiers

Fluorescent CP Traps

The European Bladderworts (Utricularia)

The Motion of
T2 Sundew Tentacles

N. truncata Eats Four Mice
Publication in "Das Taublatt"

EEE 2007 in Leiden (NL)

Schizandra-Blues
by Brian Barnes.

Filming at
Borneo Exotics
in Sri Lanka.

DVD YouTube
Publication in "Das Taublatt"

Die Byblishybride
B. filifolia x B. liniflora

Publikation in CPN YouTube

Pulvinus and Movement
in Byblis

YouTube 1 YouTube 2

Amorphophallus konjak
flowere (1,86 m)
in time lapse.

The Big 2004 Tsunami
in Sri Lanka

Nepal 1981

Cephalotus follicularis in situ

Carnivores on the "Blocksberg"

The Waterwheel Trap Aldrovanda in Switzerland

Enzym Test with Photo Film

On CP-tour with
Stewart McPherson (Playlist)

Triphyophyllum peltatum
in Sierra Leone

Nepenthes pervillei
at the Seychelles

The ICPS World Conference
2002 in Tokyo

The Ant Massacre

Triggerplants
(Stylidium species)

Our 179 videos
A complete overview with brief descriptions.

Last Upload: 2025 June 27

Skulptur 80 - Wenkenhof
The most unusual art event of the 20th century in Switzerland.

This exhibition of modern sculptures, also celebrated internationally as the “most unusual art event of the 20th century in Switzerland”, was created at the suggestion of the famous gallery owner Ernst Beyeler, together with the art historian Martin Schwander. Reports about it in the media quickly aroused our curiosity. So we packed our camera and went with Irmgard's parents to the neighboring Swiss town of Riehen. What we experienced there in the extensive Wenkenhof Park was indeed very unusual for that time.

Hartmeyer's Nepenthes bicalcarata and the Ants

This is a short film about Hartmeyer's carnivorous plants in the summer of 2025. First, there is an ant war, then an aphid infestation in the garden, and finally, an ant invasion in the house. What should be done? They invade the greenhouse, too. There, they come across our large pair of Nepenthes bicalcarata. But there is much more to see! Enjoy your visit!

Upload 2024 December 14
20 Years Boxing Day Tsunami

After 20 years, this film is intended to commemorate the catastrophic tsunami of December 26, 2004 in the Indian Ocean. Newly created time-lapse footage, AI-generated scenes and, for the first time, details of our harrowing flight home complete the first documentary from 2004. 20 years later, we still get goosebumps when we see these pictures. In December 2024, short excerpts from our recordings were also shown on TERRA X History (ZDF).

AI-generated scenes by Norberto Navarro Valiente / via Pixabay.

How to grow Triphyophyllum peltatum

The largest carnivorous plant on earth.
Bilingual: English & German subtitles provided.

Adventures with Carnivorous Plants in Australia:

FLEISCHIMANIA remastered:

2001 - Carnivorous Plant Maniacs in Down Under.
Fleischimania_remastered_Thumb

In the final part of our trilogy we find many carnivorous plants with Kirstie Wulf and Greg Bourke in Sydney and the Blue Mountains. More with Trevor Hannam in Cairns, and Drosera schizandra in the jungles of Mount Bartle Frere. In Port Douglas, we are invited to the blues evenings at the Court House Hotel and dive on the Barrier Reef. In the Kimberley CP-paradise near Kununurra, we film an undescribed sundew. Dr. Jan Schlauer explains its special features to us after our return. At the end of 2001 he described and published the new species as Drosera hartmeyerorum. An hour full of exciting experiences in search of carnivorous plants. It doesn't get much more adventurous than that!

1995 - Destination Carnivorous Plants
Reiseziel Insektivoren 1995

Our 2nd Australian adventure leads to exciting discoveries of sundews
and bugs. Trevor Hannam guides us in the realm of the poisonous
Taipans to the - at that time still only described in Down Under -
Nepenthes mirabilis. A MUST for Australia fans.

1991 - Beautiful and Hungry!
Australien Tour 1990/91

Let us take you on an adventurous journey through Down Under. Exciting entertainment not only for CP-friends.
Featuring Allen Lowrie, Marilyn Minon and Trevor Hannam.

Copper foil to fight Tiger Mossies
Russischer Bär im Karnivorengarten_Thumb

Here are the results of our experiments with copper foil
in summer 2023.

Devil's Claws are Bug-Plants. A Spontaneous Mutualism.
Probiscidea & Dicyphus_Thumb

European Mirids on American Plants.

Drosera glanduligera in Guinness World Records 2021

Diva-Guinness_New Year

Today we are of course especially happy about the entry of "our" Diva into the Guinnes World Records 2021. The photo also shows the important players: On the top left the photo of Richard Davion, who was the first to report about the fast catapults. The right photo shows Dr. Simon Poppinga, group leader in the Plant Biomechanics Group at the University of Freiburg, who, in collaboration with the Hartmeyers, measured the fabulous 75 ms for a capture with a high-speed camera and coined the name catapult-flypaper trap. While exchanging data with a colleague, the latter was so impressed that he submitted the "Diva" and the Bladderworts to Guinness as a record-breaker ... and this was accepted.

A great story.

The fastest carnivorous plants show what they are able to do.
A very special competition.

Symbiotic bugs living on carnivorous plants in tropical Australia

Predatory mirid bugs form biological communities with different sticky carnivorous plants. Such a symbiosis with Roridula and Pameridea bugs was first described from South Africa by the German botanist Rudolf Marloth in 1902. About half a century later, Lloyd (1942) and China (1953) reported on Setocoris and Cyrtopeltis bugs living on Byblis gigantea and some Drosera near Perth (Southwest Australia). In 1995, Irmgard and I were very fortunate to film and publish four of such mutualisms for the first time on tropical Byblis and Drosera in Northern Australia. On three journeys, we spent more than six months in Australia to capture news on carnivorous plants on film and found luckily even a not described sundew. As a positive consequence, our movies and articles on the discoveries found the interest of acknowledged scientists, and led to an invitation to hold a video lecture at the National Science Museum in Tokyo, Japan. That was both, a great honor and a confirmation of the relevance of our work. This film contains excerpts from our original footage and comments; however, remastered (includes English subtitles) as a brief entertaining (HD) summary on the bug - carnivorous plant mutualisms in tropical Australia.

The first publication of the mutualisms that we discovered on our video-tour through Northern Australia took place even in 1995 in the Bulletin of the Australien Carnivorous Plant Society (ACPS). A detailed description of the phenomenon followed in 1996, including a those days painstakingly collected listing of the systematics of mirid bugs (Diciphini), which live on sticky carnivores. Once again synchronically published in the German and English language in Das Taublatt Heft 27 (jetzt als PDF) and the Bulletin der ACPS Volume 15.

The Realm of Emergences: Drosera Sektion Arachnopus

The Realm of Emergences shows the history and the currently most detailed description of the spider leg sundews (section Arachnopus) by their different emergences in an entertaining fashion. With D. hartmeyerorum, Dr. Jan Schlauer split the first species from D. indica for its unique morphology in 2001. Criticized by some experts at that time, today we can say with certainty that the plants in this section can actually be distinguished by their emergences, even if their function is often not known. Only the characteristics of the emergences of D. hartmeyerorum have been unequivocally proven. They function as optical lenses, which light up bright yellow even under a red laser beam. In D. cucullata we find structures that appear like ant abdomens and when the German couple Holger & Anja Hennern discovered a sundew with ice-lolly emergences in 2008, even the experts were amazed. These and further emergences that appear even more fascinating beneath the microscope help to identify the plants that have been distinguished from D. indica so far.

This film enables you to recognize the featured plants easily.

Untangling The Indian Sundew Muddle

Even in 1753, Linnaeus described the Indian Sundew (Drosera indica) officially. In our film, we are especially happy to show the herbal records that existed at that time with the kind permission by the Trustees of the Natural History Museum London (GBR) and the Naturalis Biodiversity Center in Leiden (NLD). Despite their different appearance, between 1753 to 2001 all spider leg sundews ( section DroseraArachnopus) occuring from Africa over Asia to Australia were identified as D. indica. Some early attempts to assign plants as separate species, such as by Planchon in 1848, failed because the distinguishing characteristics were not considered sufficient and/or reliable.

Eventually in 2017, we were able to examine also the micromorphology of the "real" D. indica and found emergences, which were obviously misinterpreted and/or ignored in the existing literature. Until today, the spider leg sundews are often confused and therefore incorrectly labeled in botanical gardens as well as private collections. With our film "Untangling the Indian Sundew Muddle" we hope to be helpful to assign D. indica correctly. We are very grateful for the kind support by taxonomy expert Dr. Jan Schlauer, for the provision of seeds from the "real" D. indica by Gideon Lim and the photos of D. barrettiorum by Holger & Anja Hennern.

Publications and videos on the fascinating catapult-flypaper trap

Our documentary on the catapult-flypaper-trap derives from a common project with the
Plant Biomechanics Group of the Botanic Garden of the Albert-Ludwigs-University Freiburg.

In September 2012 our filmlet for the PLOS ONE article Catapulting Tentacles in a Sticky Carnivorous Plant

became
Video of the week by the German magazine Bild der Wissenschaft.
D. glanduligera table

Our documentation "The Diva's Catapult"

>Publikation on PLOS ONE<

Press Release of the University Freiburg

International Press Responds

Short film: The catapult-flypaper trap in action.
Prey capture in a nutshell on YouTube.

On CP-tour with Stewart McPherson

Stew's trips to the Tepuis of Venezuela and their fascinating fauna and flora. A collaboration with the famous author of CP-books, who kindly provided us his raw film-footage for the editing and production of this documentary. We show all species of Heliamphora (described until 2010).

DVD description

The English movie as playlist on YouTube

CP-books and more by Stewart McPherson

Drosera: Snap-tentacles and Runway Lights.

Our examinations on sundew tentacles from 1994 to 2010.

DVD YouTube Drosera glanduligera

Publication in CPN General view with microscope pictures

Siggi Hartmeyer's
performance at TV total.

Click on the photo or text to view the broadcast on

.

Comedy meets Carnivorous Plants.

Germany's popular entertainer Stefan Raab questioned Siggi on "the personal sensitivities of carnivorous plants".
A very special lesson. Here is much room for a lot of laughter.
More informationen at our page "The Hartmeyers on TV".

TV-Broadcast: Planet Wissen 14.08.2015: "Pflanzen wie wir."
On air via the TV-stations SWR, ARD-alpha, WDR, 1-plus, HR, RBB

"Neue Sicht auf unsere grünen Mitgeschöpfe"
with technology writer Volker Arzt.

Plants can do much more than most people think. Plants lure and lie, they warn and defend themselves, and they know how to orienteer. With each new study, botanists discover more fascinating skills. For example, plants are able to distinguish colors and smells. They communicate with each other and with animals. They recognize who is feeding on them and react with precisely tailored defense strategies. The guest on Planet Wissen is nature filmmaker and journalist Volker Arzt, who succeeded in making an award-winning film with "Kluge Pflanzen" (Clever Plants).

Expert consultant is the famous technology writer Volker Arzt, who talks about the making of his documentary and book "Kluge Pflanzen" (Clever Plants). It was a pleasure to provide some film fooltage for "Planet Wissen" (English: planet knowledge).

Volker Arzt mailed us: "The editorial staff "caught fire" after looking at your clips on the internet ..."

The warmly recommended book by Volker Arzt: For everybody who is looking for more information on the defensive strategies and the sensoric performance of plants. It provides a plain, thrilling and entertaining insight into modern plant research. Enclosed is a DVD with two film documentaries!

Kluge Pflanzen by Volker Arzt. C. Bertelsmann, 2009 - ISBN: 978-3570010266.

On May 15, 2022, our papers on RESEARCHGATE achieved >10,000 reads.
January 2025: 15,000.

June 22, 2022, our videos on

received 2 million views.
June 2025: 2.4 Millions.

In Decemberi 2024, the views for our tsunami documentary from 2004 exceeded half a million.

Many thanks for the interest!

Offers
plants & seeds

Catapulted into Guinness
World Records 2021.

Online: Oberbadische Zeitung, Markgräfler Tageblatt and Weiler Zeitung on the entry of the catapult-flypaper trap Drosera glanduligera in

Overview of our published
articles and related reports.

Online on BIOLOGY

Distribution of Acetogenic Naphthoquinones in Droseraceae and Their Chemotaxonomic Utility.

Jan Schlauer, Andreas Fleischmann, Siegfried R. H. Hartmeyer, Irmgard Hartmeyer and Heiko Rischer.

Siggi & Irmgard private:
Review1978
(English subtitles provided)

Simply enjoy this time travel

Now online as PDF!
(German language)

Tidal changes in the
High Harz Mountains

A family from the town of Benneckenstein experiences the Nazis, the Second World War, the escape from the GDR and the new beginning in the German Federal Republic until the reunification. True experiences between 1937 and 2000, told by contemporary witness Christa Hartmeyer.

Our CP-collection
(topic list with photos)

Recommended Videos

Springtails and Sundews

Nepenthes reinwardtiana:
Sexy Eyes!

Hartmeyer's Vulkantour 1980
Recommended for all friends.

CP-Special Show at a Trade Fair in Lörrach (Germany). 1998 - 1999 - 2010 - 2014

English Translation of
All green - and later
no longer there ...

Filming in Benneckenstein (Harz) inspirired Video for WCPD 2022.

Neue Wernigeröder Zeitung (NWZ) – Harzer Wochenblatt. Verlag Jüttners Buchhandlung.

English Translation of
"Von Benneckenstein in die Welt der Fleischfresser":

From Benneckenstein to
the world of carnivores.
Cover NWZ

An Interview by journalist Jürgen Kohlrausch with Siggi Hartmeyer. Published in the
Neue Wernigeröder Zeitung.
! Here multimedia
with active links !

Always fascinating:

The "Predator Sundew"
in action.
A minute that's worth it.

Catapults in Pygmyland

Amazing results: Pygmy sundews capture minute prey like springtails with rapid catapult action. Our experiments for this film (English subtitles) show that Drosera glanduligera is not longer the only sundew with a catapult-flypaper trapping mechanism. Also the snap-tentacles of several pygmy Drosera act with the speed of a closing Venus flytrap and fling walking prey from the periphery of the plant onto its sticky leaf. Therefore they turn out to be actually comparable with the amazing Drosera glanduligera, however, their catapults are multifunctional and possess a mechanism to avoid unessential movement: Like the Venus Flytrap. Under our microscope we examined 22 Drosera and received surprising results.

The article about the film

Several pygmy Sundew species possess catapult-flypaper traps with repetitive function,
indicating a possible evolutionary change into aquatic snap traps similar to Aldrovanda.

Siegfried R. H. Hartmeyer and Irmgard Hartmeyer (2015). Carnivorous Plant Newsletter Vol. 44/4:172-184.

Zoropsis spinimana:
An invasive spider.

D. glanduligera snap-tentacle straight 2

D. glanduligera snap-tentacle triggered 2

Drosera Schnelltentakel

In 2009 we upgraded our documentary on snap-tentacles for a CP-project at the University Würzburg. This has been uploaded to YouTube in the German language (click on pictures).

Award of the Robert Bosch Stiftung: for a Dionaea project in Berlin.

YouTube

Dinosaurs

"Gezeitenwechsel im Hochharz"
a book by Christa Hartmeyer

Minikino Sonderschau Fleischfressende Pflanzen

The catapultflypaper trap
in the public

The amazing catapulting of prey by the catapult-flypaper trap was our key-issue at the Regio-Messe Lörrach (trade fair) 2014. In September the famous technology writer Volker Arzt presented it for the first time on TV (Planet Wissen, ARD).

The amazing "prey flinging" of a catapult-flypaper trap was for the first time presented to a wide public in the "CP-Cinema" at the Regio Messe
Lörrach 2014.

Byblis is motile
... and Lindernia?

A highlight for CP-enthusiasts! In 2018, first videos by Dr. Gregory Allan (GB) on Facebook showed an active motion of Byblis trichomes. However, the topic literature describes the carnivorous genus as immobile. To review that behavior, we made own time lapse shots with a microscope that turned out to be surprisingly even for ourselves.

They confirm clearly that the unicellular trichome stalks show an active motion down to the leaf surface after being touched by prey. Therefore, we looked up again the work of some CP pioneers like Charles Darwin (1875) or C.A. Fenner (1904), and included their findings and assumptions on Byblis complemented with excerpts from Dr. Gregory Allan's first shots (with his kind permission). In addition, we examined the related Lindernia cleistandra (all Lamiales) that likewise occurs in tropical Australia and that is like Byblis densly covered with glandular trichomes. However, its state regarding carnivory is yet unclear. We complemented the time lapse shots with an enzyme test, which we used even in 2010 to detect digestive enzymes in Byblis filifolia. Well, just view this film and you will know more about these interesting plants.

We would like to express our thanks to Dr. Gregory Allan, Dr. Jan Schlauer as well as Holger und Anja Hennern for their kind support during the making of this film.

Overview of our photo pages