Hey Suzanne,
You asked me a question so *of course* I have to answer it myself...even if five people have already answered it to some degree.
Basically, carnivorous plants used to be called insectivorous. Because people realized that cp do not eat insects exclusively, 'carnivorous' became more popular, and has stayed that way. If you see people still calling them 'insectivorous,' you know that those people either 1) have not found out that 'carnivorous' is a more appropriate term, or 2) just want to sound different from everyone else, to stand out from the crowd so to speak, or 3) for some reason are referring only to those plants that eat insects, which means that, for some reason, they have excluded Utricularia (utrics eat tiny crustaceans and microbes -- not what you'd consider insects). And yes, then there is the fact that other cp genera will often consume non-insects.
Chris
You asked me a question so *of course* I have to answer it myself...even if five people have already answered it to some degree.
Basically, carnivorous plants used to be called insectivorous. Because people realized that cp do not eat insects exclusively, 'carnivorous' became more popular, and has stayed that way. If you see people still calling them 'insectivorous,' you know that those people either 1) have not found out that 'carnivorous' is a more appropriate term, or 2) just want to sound different from everyone else, to stand out from the crowd so to speak, or 3) for some reason are referring only to those plants that eat insects, which means that, for some reason, they have excluded Utricularia (utrics eat tiny crustaceans and microbes -- not what you'd consider insects). And yes, then there is the fact that other cp genera will often consume non-insects.
Chris