A new monster in the S. Yellow Jacket. Just in time for Halloween.
A new monster has appeared in one of the Yellow Jacket pitchers. I don’t know what it is, but I know it’s creepy looking. It looks like the midge larvae I’d seen before, but it has 2 large paddles it’s tail end (Or it has large dumbo ears. Sometimes it's hard to tell). It’s not a mosquito or flesh fly larvae either. I did spot a fly, repeatedly, in the pitcher. Perhaps it's this fly’s larva.
Whatever it is, it is hungry. These little white worms are constantly eating.
The backstory about this pitcher: I captured a giant roach and put it in with the hope a large food item would support a large population of mites to eat it. It’s worked before and it seemed to be working now. Also, the white mites show up nicely against the black roach. The mite population seemed to be growing and then the monsters showed up. I haven’t observed mites since. I think that’s more because the mites are much smaller, rather than that they were eaten.
We’ll see.
I threw a large ant into the pitcher with the new monsters. I was hoping to see the ant fight with the monsters, but something odd happened. The ant died in under 2 minutes. I usually see ants swimming with in the pitcher water (when there is pitcher water) I doubt the monsters scared the ant to death. Perhaps this pitcher produces something toxic or this ant is a really bad swimmer. The mystery fly seemed to be watching the poor ant’s struggles as well. By around 9 minutes, the Halloween monsters had begun investigating the ant.
Another odd observation is that these new monsters are only in one pitcher. I checked all the other pitchers, but nothing unusual there. I haven’t checked the other pitcher plants, yet so we’ll see. (Swarms of mosquitoes have made me cut my insectivorous plant observations short. Ironic)