Ants in my plants!

[Whimgrinder]

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My Nepenthes Ventrata has suddenly become the center of attention today for a colony of small Ants. They are sucking up the sugar exuded by the nectar glands found on various parts of the plant. The peristome also secretes a sugary nectar; strategic to the luring and capture of the insects. Several times today I watched the ants working on the plant and I would say that 80% of the ants that explored the peristome eventually fell into the pitcher! One of these pitchers had at least fifty ants in it by 7PM this evening. Yikes!

The first ant falls in at the 45 second mark, watch for it! (and at least two more at 3:36 and 4:41)

 

[Cthulhu138]

Wow, there's a ton of them ! Are they only bothering with the ventrata ?

 

[potted_plants]

Well, I doubt the plant hates all of the food.

 

[Whimgrinder]

Wow, there's a ton of them ! Are they only bothering with the ventrata ?

Curiously, they have only gone after the N. Ventrata, yes. I placed my seedling N. Chastity (sanguinea X sibuyanensis) where it has one pitcher touching the bench where the ant path intersects, and they seemed to ignore it in favor of the Ventrata. I saw this same thing happen one week last Fall when an ant colony entered the GH and targeted just one N. maxima hybrid ("Poi Dog", pedigree uncertain), and within two days, a couple hundred of these small ants ended up in the pitchers! (all uppers, several of which were touching the bench frame) Clearly ants are particularly susceptible to the sugary lure of Nepenthes, as they are sugar collectors, going so far as to even "farm" other insects like aphids and scale; species known to exude sugar.

Fascinating to watch the trapping mechanism in action, yes?!

 

[Not a Number]

You might not be so fascinated if the ants start farming aphids on your plants

 

[Whimgrinder]

You might not be so fascinated if the ants start farming aphids on your plants

I do keep a watch out for that kind of activity, but they don't appear inclined to do so, fortunately

 

[CreatureTom]

Gah I love watching our plants work!

 

[Step_Pro]

Nice looking plant, it is getting the big tasty ants too! I thought the one that fell in at 3:35 was going to get away

 

[dsrtfox1942]

Oh the humanity!!!!

 

[lance]

Nice! This happens to me every year, right after the winter goes away. The colony of ants come in the GH and stay from febuary to december. Sure, there's the usual "casualties" every day, but that hasn't stopped them!

 

[Nepenthesis]

I had a colony living in my greenhouse a few months ago before I had many plants in there. They had their colony in the wooden base I had the greenhouse attached to. I just soaked the entire thing with Roundup and they were gone within hours.

 

[Whimgrinder]

Ummm....Roundup! Seriously?! You do realize its an herbicide, right?

 

[Zacham3]

Unless they were harming the plants, I would've let them stay. Right now I have a swarm of fungus gnats from all of the other plants in my room and instead of using any spray, I just left them for the cuttings that I had. I woke up yesterday to one of my Marston Dragon leaves being plastered with gnats

 

[Wire Man]

I've noticed that they target one plant at a time, too. In my collection they went after S. purpurea the most last year. At Meadowview it was the N. 'Red Dragon' in 2011, and now it's N. alata, reinwardtiana, burbidgeae, and ventricosa. Needless to say fertilizing duties have been cut back a lot.

 

[Sharoman]

i was told that if it's in a closed off space you can use dry ice to kill them.
im starting to see the same problem in my terrarium, hopefuly it wont become an information.

 

[DJ57]

I get ants feeding my sarrs and dews in the bog every year.

 

[Rokosauros]

If you stay in the tropics, they're ever present. I've had a newly popped pitcher filled about 1/5 of ants within the week...

The thing is, just don't let them make a nest (with the larvae and queen and all). Otherwise, I find them harmless and a good source of food. At least I don't need to feed any of my CPs!