Catching Bugs
You can spend a lot of time catching bugs to feed your plants, but I have found that they are quite good at catching insects on their own (hover for details and/or click to enlarge).
Caught within 5 minutes of placing my ping near this flat of strawberries
Blurry pitcher - focus is on the mosquito
This was a very large spider
I was quite surprised to see that this venus flytrap had caught a wasp!
Deadly but beautiful
Occasionally, I will catch insects to feed my plants. People often think that carnivorous plants have to eat bugs to survive. However, that's not true - carnivorous plants are photosynthetic, like other plants. They require sunlight and water, and can derive nutrients from insects, but (with the exception of Drosera regia) don't need to in order to survive.
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Here's a video of one of my Venus flytraps capturing a rather large spider that I happened to find inside our house. You can see that it takes a little while for the trap to close even though the spider is crawling on it. This is because 2 trigger hairs have to be touched at the same time, or the same one has to be touched twice in 20 seconds for the trap to trigger (read more and see the trigger hairs close up on my Dionaea page).
*Sound effects are from iMovie.
Sarracenia vs. Ants
Here's a short video of one of my Sarracenia showing the many ants that have fallen into its pitcher. The ants are attracted to the nectar on the pitcher's rim, and then fall in, and cannot climb out because of the downward-facing hairs in the lower plant.
VFT vs. Spider
This unlucky spider was trapped by my VFT and is now stuck in between its leaves.
Sarracenia vs. Bee
Here's a short video of one of my Sarracenia with a bee trapped inside.
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Sarracenia vs. Wasp
Here's another video of a wasp trapped in one of my Sarracenia pitchers.
