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Pictures of your Drosera eating things

Dexenthes

Aristoloingulamata
Here's mine:

D. capensis "typical" eating a pill-bug.





 
I like it! A nice series of photos. :)
 
Nice shots guys. Surprised Mach didn't correct Dex's misidentification of the pill bug ! hahahaha
 
Drosera scorpioides
IMGP7481.jpg
 
two Drosera venusta leaves sharing an unidentified species of caterpillar I found on my Sarracenia:
DSC_1979_1.jpg

It escaped and I had to put it back on a leaf.
 
Nice pics everyone :lol:

I don't know if it is the same for everyone but to me feeding a Drosera an insect is a very old and ritualistic activity from me. It takes me straight back to my childhood; feeding ants to a D. capensis and just spending countless minutes or hours watching them try to escape.

I find the moments spent watching the insect writhe in its final and prolonged hours on earth to be extremely introspective as it almost requires some sort of sick desire to watch the insect suffer, and the time that it takes to witness the Drosera actually move towards the insect takes longer than most people would be willing to sit out and wait. Sort of makes you feel like you are god for just a few minutes to that small insect. Sealing their fate on a tentacled platform.
 
this guy never stood a chance against my ravenous obovata and was kinda proud it pulled in a kill so big

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  • #10
haha nice... no chance at all.
 
  • #11
Nice pics everyone :lol:

I don't know if it is the same for everyone but to me feeding a Drosera an insect is a very old and ritualistic activity from me. It takes me straight back to my childhood; feeding ants to a D. capensis and just spending countless minutes or hours watching them try to escape.

I find the moments spent watching the insect writhe in its final and prolonged hours on earth to be extremely introspective as it almost requires some sort of sick desire to watch the insect suffer, and the time that it takes to witness the Drosera actually move towards the insect takes longer than most people would be willing to sit out and wait. Sort of makes you feel like you are god for just a few minutes to that small insect. Sealing their fate on a tentacled platform.

I agree. The feeding feels like some larger-than-life act and it just stays with me for a while. I always feel guilty about it though, except when I caught those caterpillars. And some species (like binata) move fast enough that you can actually see the tentacles moving when you put prey on the outer tentacles. The most memorable feeding for me, though (or maybe it was just a capture), was seeing my Aldrovanda snap shut on Daphnia. I felt I had seen something really extraordinary, and I wish I could have recorded it. Before that I had only seen Daphnia already in the traps.
I guess Drosera is kind of different from other genera except Pinguicula, since you can see the insect on the leaf for a long time until it curls up, if it does.
 
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  • #12
If you want fast moving watch a burmannii, they are really fast, but your conditions effect the speed of the plant, also if you feel guilty just use fish food pellets, I used to use insects, but now fish food is easier, stores longer, is cheaper and is much faster, plus nepenthes, drosera, drosophyllum, sarracenia and byblis all love pellets.
 
  • #13
Some photo sequences converted to video

D. aliciae and fruitfly
 
  • #14
D. venusta and carpet beetle larva
 
  • #15
nice shots people ,love your vids NAN,here are a couple of d.regia victims from last summer
 
  • #16
I've always wondered, do people move insects so more of it is in contact with the leaf and is digested? Like in the photo above, I would push the crane fly backwards so the leaf could digest more, but does anyone else do that? I do the same for Drosophyllum. It seems like a waste to just have the plant digest a small part of the body, although maybe there is fear of fungus if the insect is too large.
I need to get a real camera so I can take macro shots!
 
  • #17
I've always wondered, do people move insects so more of it is in contact with the leaf and is digested? Like in the photo above, I would push the crane fly backwards so the leaf could digest more, but does anyone else do that? I do the same for Drosophyllum. It seems like a waste to just have the plant digest a small part of the body, although maybe there is fear of fungus if the insect is too large.
I need to get a real camera so I can take macro shots!

I do that.
 
  • #18
Free or natural catches get no assistance either way. If the "prey" escapes so it goes. Let nature or fate or what ever you want to call it take its own course. The carpet beetle larva is the only one of what I've posted that I "fed" to the plant.
 
  • #19
I sometimes go above and beyond the call of nature with my indoor Drosera. They simply don't have any bugs to catch most of the year.
 
  • #20
Drosera aff. macrantha "Swamp Form" with a gnat.
DSC_0113_1.jpg

I was surprised the plant caught the gnat by itself, since I usually keep a plastic bag over it to keep it humid. It must have caught it when I lifted up the bag to feed it.
 
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