When my brother went off to college, he gave me his carnivorous plants! I had always liked watching the venus flytraps snap shut on fruit flies and gnats, but I never really thought about getting any myself. Now I'm hooked! The only thing is, this winter they're eating ladybugs that came into our house around Halloween! I wouldn't let mom spray them because I looked it up on the net and they really don't hurt anything. But they are an endangered species around here!!!! The flytraps will eat anything, or try. Well, they don't "eat" exactly. They just suck out the juices. Every bug that gets caught in the trap is like a v-8 to them. They just suck it dry and the trap opens and is set again.

The ladybugs must put a strain on them, because everytime it catches a ladybug, the trap dies. Just turns brown and zap. But the rest of the plant grows. I've looked in the saracenia but there are no ladybugs. And they are too big to get caught by the sundews.

I think my brother got interested when we went to this museum when we were on vacation and there was this giant flytrap opening and closing in the coastal plant exhibit. I think he thought his would grow to be that big! It's against the law to dig them up but they grow them in greenhouses. I have a few baby flytraps and a lot of baby sundews. When my brother came home at Christmas he couldn't believe it. Usually they die down in the winter or at least stop growing much. So if the died off plants don't come back at least I have replacements.

You can see my Snowy avatar is perching between a baby sundew and a baby venus flytrap.

The world is weird when plants eat bugs instead of the other way around, huh.