a peek inside the fishbowl

I wrote about our family of venus fly traps earlier this summer, but I wanted to post an update because it’s turned out to be a really interesting little project. Sidebar: many kids plant seeds/grow beans as a school project during some point in their lives. This is really taking it to the next level!

Look what happened:

Ouch.

I don’t know why I’m surprised that our venus fly traps actually catch flies, but they do! Full size ones! It’s been fascinating – and only mildly creepy. In fact, we saw it happen.

Let me set the scene for you: a pesky housefly was buzzing around the window. Buzz, tap, buzz, tap, buzz, tap. He slowly made his way down to the row of plants. What’s this? He thinks. Maybe it’s something to eat! Curiousity gets the better of him. He inches his way down to one of them slowly, carefully. His senses are tingling, but he doesn’t see anything amiss. It’s just a plant! An ordinary plant! What can possibly go wrong? His antenna is twitching, the hairy parts of his legs picking up every tiny breeze. He takes one final little hop, right on to the trap. He pokes around for a moment to see what the big deal is about, tra la la, when suddenly, the trap swings shut in one smooth motion, the bristles coming together like intertwined fingers. It happens in a fifth of a second, and the fly is hopelessly trapped, forever.

(!!)

I have some venus fly trap tips if you’re thinking of picking one up for fly killing duty in your home:

• the venus fly trap needs to be watered with a spray bottle every day, using water that has been be boiled and cooled, or rainwater (we use the latter)
• it needs to be on a sunny window. Ours are in an east-facing window and they seems to be doing ok.
• the dead traps should be trimmed off periodically. New ones will grow in to replace them.

And if you’re wondering, we bought ours at Farm Boy. :)