Re: Fire Ants

John Taylor [The Banshee] (rphjt@minyos.xx.rmit.OZ.AU)
Tue, 23 Nov 93 08:23:36 +0000

>Also, I have one Nepenthes, N. kampotianna, outside which is an absolute
>magnet for fire ants. Pitchers will fill up with fire ants even in the
>absence of obvious nests in the area. The pitchers stop trapping ants only
>when they are so full the ants can climb back onto the peristome. The little
>beasties get S**t-faced too, because you can poke at them without any swarming
>response.

Does Sarracenia rubra varieties have any attraction for fire ants? I've
noticed that this plant (I'm assuming mine is a "purebred" rubra...) is an
irresistable lure for the small, harmless black ants around our place. In
fact, I looked down the trap of one on the weekend (looking for a still buzzing
fly) and found dozens of live ants in a ring around the inside of the pitcher
apparently struggle to stay just above the liquid.

On a related note, our S. flava took about 30 seconds to dispatch a European
wasp from the time in flew into the glasshouse (I made a fairly hasty departure
;-) ) 'til it fell in. Unfortunately, these wasps don't go without a fight
and this one chewed a hole in the pitcher in an attempt to escape (nearly
worked too).

A quick (?) question - is the long "filament/spike" on the apex/point of the
Sarracenia flava pitcher lid a sure-thing IDing feature? I've noticed that
our flava has about 1 inch long "spikes", and the alata "Red Throat" x flava
(or vice versa) hybrid has much shorter ones - other plants have little if any
obvious spikes.

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| John Taylor [The Banshee] | Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology |
| rphjt@minyos.xx.rmit.oz.au | Department of Applied Physics |
| MOKING IS A HEALTH HAZARD. | Melbourne, Victoria, AUSTRALIA |
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