I was looking over my plants yesterday and noticed that my prize-winning pot of
Drosera burmannii was looking terrible.
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| What a bummer. My prize-winning plants! |
I couldn't figure out what was going wrong...until I looked closer.
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| This little guy sure just set up shop like it was nothing. |
It's a caterpillar! Probably the same species as the one that was inhabiting one of my
Drosera binata back in August. I watched it chewing away on my prized plants for a second before extracting it. It did not want to be extracted, but it is a caterpillar and I am a dextrous ape, so it wasn't much of a contest.
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| It was pretty small, a bit more than a quarter inch (.5 cm) long. |
It was able to move very quickly within the little tent it had made among the leaves of my
D. burmannii, but once out in the open it was fairly sluggish.
I looked around for signs of any more, but I think this was the only one. Of course, I was left with the problem of what to do with it. Luckily, being a carnivorous plant hobbyist gives you all sorts of ghoulish solutions to bug problems.
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| I checked back today and yes it did successfully begin digesting. |
I hope my
D. burmannii are able to bounce back.
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P.S. Check out how big my
Drosera natalensis seedlings have gotten.
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| Feeding just makes such a difference. |
How did the caterpillar even got there in the first place? Feeding makes a huge difference. I continuously get ants in my sarracenia pitchers. I will sprinkle the ants that had struggled for a few days onto my Droseras. Literally, the Hamiltoni doubled in size. It's cray cray!
ReplyDeleteAlso thanks for the lighting guide, I decided to copy your metal rack. I haven't put up reflective material because I"m cornered about air flow. Do you use a fan?
I really don't know. I assume a moth laid an egg? I hope more don't pop up.
DeleteWith respect to airflow I don't currently use a fan but it's something I've thought about a lot. I think just a little bit of circulation would make a big difference in heat buildup.