Bladderworts (Utricularia spp. Lentibulariaceae) are plants with many superlatives: They belong to the most recently evolved and also the largest genus of carnivorous flowering plants, encompassing more than 240 species. They have one of the smallest genomes known in flowering plants, have the fastest traps, are completely rootless, are distributed almost worldwide, and possess a great variety of different life forms. A team in the Plant Biomechanics Group at the Botanical Garden of the University of Freiburg led by Prof. Dr. Thomas Speck and Dr. Simon Poppinga is conducting comparative morphological and biomechanical analyses on these ultra-fast traps, which capture prey by means of underpressure-induced suction. The journal Scientific Reports has now published two new articles with results from the group.