"David Kotschessa" wrote in message
...

I must be too well trained by my cats....

I have this little fly problem.

I figured one natural way to "deal with it" would be to have a venus fly
trap around. A nice symbiotic relationship between me, the insects in my
house and the plant.

So I'm watching these flies buzz around the thing...Getting closer... land
on the window... fly away to another part of the house.

So I killed the thing myself and fed it to the plant. You think the cats
were talking to it and said "Don't worry, if you just sit there and look
pathetic he'll give you food." ?

Has anybody seen a venus fly trap EVER ACTUALLY CATCH A FLY OR BUG?

I've a few larger bug-eatin' pitcher plants that do well outdoors, & when
I clip out older pitchers, they're always stuffed with exoskeletons. I've
frequently been weeding or working nearby & heard buzzing inside the
pitchers. One that is very low-growing seems to have a decided preference
for earwigs & wood louses, while a toller one gets moths & flies & wasps.

But the idea that a wee indoor venus flytrap might catch flies all over
the house was, at best, a delusional hope. If you want to see it capture
its own food, enclose it in a terrarium or set a belljar over it, with a
few baby crickets (from the petstore) turned loose in the same finite
space, & you will see flytraps feed themselves just fine.

-paghat the ratgirl

--
"Of what are you afraid, my child?" inquired the kindly teacher.
"Oh, sir! The flowers, they are wild," replied the timid creature.
-from Peter Newell's "Wild Flowers"
Visit the Garden of Paghat the Ratgirl: http://www.paghat.com