June 2019
I picked up a few new pitcher plants from my friends at petflytrap. Got a medium sized Sarracenia readii x moorei. It was probably a good sign that the pot was covered in ants the next morning. I think they were looking to start a colony there.
I repotted it into a larger planter It only has 2 tall, thin pitchers and one about to open. . In no time at all one of the pitchers filled with ants. And I don't mean that metaphorically. It was filled with ants up to the zone 3-4 boundary. The newest pitcher opened and after a few days, it too was filled with ants.
The same pitcher 4 days later
Then they all died. Oh, the ant-manity.
I speculate that, like s. Leucophylla, it produces something to kill off its trapped prey.
Then something weird happened. After the ant's demise I went to check on the usual assortment of blobs that come to eat the plant’s prey. I thought I had seen everything, until I saw something waving at me from inside the pitcher. The pencam lights reveal long, thin translucent tentacles(?) waving at me. There is a new predator in the pitcher or the blobs (mite) are exhibiting new behavior. Like the mites, whatever this is is nearly invisible with sunlight, but it shows up great with the pencam lights.
The new monster in the pitcher plant (which I’m calling “the worms”) appeared after the ants filled the new pitcher and after the ants have died. For instance on June 14, a number of worms showed up along with the usual assortment of blobs (mites). They are on the walls of the pitcher, waving at me. At one point, even the blobs were waving at me (around 1:30), although I think the worms were merely next to the blobs. There are several on the back of the large brown insect.
Waving creatures
Captured a honeybee around June 16 in the most recently opened pitcher of Sarracenia readii x moorei. Note, I’ve switched pitchers on you. When I do an in depth on a pitcher, I try to stay inside of a single pitcher. That allows me to tell a story of what happens inside pitcher plants through their prey and associated commensal animals. (Take the story of this fly from last season who went from trapped to lunch for the blobs.) In this case, I am focusing on a new critter that I’ve observed in the species of pitcher plant, Sarracenia readii x moorei. So to be clear, the previous videos were in the second pitcher of the season and the honeybee is in the third pitcher.
The bee does NOT look happy. It is trapped in Hooker Zone 4.
Check out the pencam light effects. The Zone 4 shows up dark green with the light on.
And then things get weirder: a living ring has formed around the Hooker Zone 3-4 boundary of the newest pitcher (the one with the bee in it). It seems to be a grouping of many little worms, as opposed to a large single animal (though it looks to be about the size of the mite larva) The ants seem freaked out by the worms, too.
Whatever it is its very creepy.
It rained this morning and filled the new pitchers and that has shed some light on the mystery creatures. The water level is above the mass of dead ants. (Note the floating honeybee from earlier) The water is filled with tiny thin animals, which I think is the new worms.
Unfortunately, this isn't a great video. These little worms are hard to film. They are small, around the size of the blobs, and they are very fast. The blobs are already at the size limit of the pencam so their wriggling makes them very difficult Their recording is also complicated by the pencam lights. The lights are invaluable, but sometimes it produces a glare that can obscure things. In this case, the pencam light glare off the water's surface can blind you to whats just below the surface.
I thought I’d seen everything inside pitcher plants. I’ve observed the slime mites (aka the blobs), and the midge larva (Metriocnemus knabi) that live in the pitcher plant. This might be the pitcher plant mosquito (Wyeomyia smithii) It doesn’t look like the typical mosquito larva I see frequently. It also doesn’t look like the picture of Wyeomyia smithii from wikipedia. Now that could be a resolution issue. That picture was taken under more controlled conditions vs filming them “in the wild” with the pencam. But it's more than a resolution issue. The midge and the mosquito larva are about the same size. The midge larva is huge relative to the blobs. These worms are considerably smaller, closer in size to the blobs.
Spotted this little guy in the third pitcher on June 29. I almost missed him as I was focused on the large insect that recently fell into the pitcher. It could be the pitcher plant mosquito, perhaps the worms are it's larva after all.
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