Colura is a genus

Genus

In biology, a genus is a low-level taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms, which is an example of definition by genus and differentia...

 of epiphytic

Epiphyte

An epiphyte is a plant that grows upon another plant non-parasitically or sometimes upon some other object , derives its moisture and nutrients from the air and rain and sometimes from debris accumulating around it, and is found in the temperate zone and in the...

 liverwort

Marchantiophyta

The Marchantiophyta are a division of bryophyte plants commonly referred to as hepatics or liverworts. Like other bryophytes, they have a gametophyte-dominant life cycle, in which cells of the plant carry only a single set of genetic information....

s and consists of approximately 60 species that are distributed mostly in the tropics

Tropics

The tropics is a region of the Earth surrounding the Equator. It is limited in latitude by the Tropic of Cancer in the northern hemisphere at approximately  N and the Tropic of Capricorn in the southern hemisphere at  S; these latitudes correspond to the axial tilt of the Earth...

. Species in this genus are no larger than a couple millimetres in size and may possess small water sac organs formed from fused leaf margins that trap small ciliate

Ciliate

The ciliates are a group of protozoans characterized by the presence of hair-like organelles called cilia, which are identical in structure to flagella but typically shorter and present in much larger numbers with a different undulating pattern than flagella...

s. It is because of this trapping mechanism that some species have been suspected of carnivory

Carnivorous plant

Carnivorous plants are plants that derive some or most of their nutrients from trapping and consuming animals or protozoans, typically insects and other arthropods. Carnivorous plants appear adapted to grow in places where the soil is thin or poor in nutrients, especially nitrogen, such as acidic...

. One such species, Colura zoophaga

Colura zoophaga

Colura zoophaga is a species of epiphytic liverwort that is endemic to the African highlands, specifically parts of Kenya. It belongs to the genus Colura, which has been hypothesized to be have carnivorous attributes as early as 1893...

, was the subject of a study that aimed to investigate the assumed carnivorous habit among liverworts. The results confirmed that ciliates were captured and died within the water sac traps, which are not unlike the bladder traps of Utricularia. Whether the species attract, digest, or absorb the prey has not been confirmed, however. The epiphytic habit of the genus, requiring all nutrients to be acquired from rainwater, is similar to the habit of known carnivorous plants.

Species

• Colura acroloba
• Colura ari
• Colura australiensis
• Colura bisvoluta
• Colura calderae
• Colura calyptrifolia
• Colura conica
• Colura crispiloba
• Colura fistulosa
• Colura leratii
• Colura pulcherrima
• Colura queenslandica
• Colura saccophylla
• Colura simplicior
• Colura superba
• Colura tenuicornis
• Colura zoophaga
  Colura zoophaga
  Colura zoophaga is a species of epiphytic liverwort that is endemic to the African highlands, specifically parts of Kenya. It belongs to the genus Colura, which has been hypothesized to be have carnivorous attributes as early as 1893...