Blessing or curse?

[joossa]

I have a nice D. filiformis var. tracyi that has divided quite a bit since I got it. It does a great job at catching its own food, especially mosquitoes during the night.

Anyway, there is this type of moth species (that is really beautiful, mind you) that likes to lay eggs on my large grapevine every spring. When summer rolls along the larvae hatch and munch away at the grapevine. So... unfortunately I find myself scraping eggs off leaves, killing larvae, and squishing adult moths before they get a chance to mate/lay eggs.

Yesterday afternoon, I found an adult moth and decided to give it to my D. filiformis as a snack. I placed it on the dewiest portion of the plant near the center. The D. filiformis is in the back yard near the grapevine.

Well, I woke up this morning and lo and behold! I found at least half a dozen more moths stuck on the D. filiformis. The one I feed to it during the afternoon must have been a female and must have been releasing pheromones to attract males for mating. The males must have followed the pheromone trails and got caught in my plant.

I fear that even more moths may come overnight tonight. Do you guys think I should remove them or do you think the plant will be able to handle it? I don't want the leaves to turn black and die due to too much prey...


Here are some pictures:

 

[Fryster]

I say leave the moths on and let nature takes its course.

It will be thread-leaf sundew vs. moths. Let 'em do battle; nature is cruel but loves a good bar-room brawl.

 

[xvart]

What a great story! I think you should leave them. Maybe just pull off some of the males?

xvart.

 

[Halt]

Suckersss As long as theres a female to attract mates i doubt your grapevine will have any more trouble.

 

[PeaceCarny]

Those are the same moths that literally lay an army of eggs on my grapevine! For the past three years at least, I see them every spring, laying eggs, and the caterpillars grow well into the summer here. When I pick one up and let it crawl on my hand, my hand begins to itch like crazy! I think it's the hairs that are attached to their bodies. I do the same thing you do. I catch as many as I can and squish em'. Last year, the larvae almost killed the plant, but in '09 I haven't seen them...yet. They usually arrive sometime in March. The vine is growing really large, and hopefully this year, there will be a good bounty of grapes.

 

[Jefforever]

I'd pick them off the leaves and make sure they're dead if I were you. Then do it again to wipe out more of them so they don't eat your grapevine. Looks like a pretty effective trapping method!

 

[Baylorguy]

I love monster filiformis plants. Cool story.

 

[DrWurm]

Very nice. I too have noticed that once one moth is caught, more follow. A while back my sanguinea caught a nice plump moth outside. 2 days later there were 2 more of the same species in the same pitcher.

Jason.

 

[joossa]

Ugh... The desert winds kicked up today. When this happens the filiformis seems to lose some of its dew. So, some of the moths got loose, but not that loose! Most of them were flapping in vain and crawling around on the tentacles. The plant really did a number on their wings. They seemed partially digested and were unusable.

I took off some of the ones that were loose and dropped them in some sarr pitchers. There is still several of them completely stuck on the tentacles, so I guess more are coming tonight...

Hehehe.... :devil:

 

[jimscott]

I wouldn't worry about the moths too much... they'll make more!