RE: Prey Stealing Slugs/Snails
John Phillips (phillips@library.ucsf.edu)
Thu, 8 Feb 96 14:24:20 CST
>I once had a D. intermedia indoors and I fed it a couple of fruitflies.
>The next morning the flies were gone without a trace. Puzzled I fed it
>again, watching the leaves close around the flies completely. The next
>day the flies were again missing! Determined to solve the mystery of
>the disappearing Drosophila, I fed 4 traps again with flies, and
>watched the leaves close. When night came I placed a lamp above the
>pot covered with a red filter to imitate the nocturnal lighting you see
>in some zoos. I checked the pot thoroughly every ten minutes or so.
>Two long hours into the night something caught my eye, a small slug was
>emerging from the point where the soil meets the side of the pot. I
>pulled up a chair and began my safari! He (or to be hermaphroditically
>politically correct he/she) slowly emerged and made a straight line to
>the base of the sundew. He crawled up the stem, crawled out onto a
>leaf, stuck his head into the folded trap and ate the fly! He did this
>three more times. Since he never climbed up a leaf that didn't have
>prey he must have smelled the presence of the flies. When he was done
>he crawled down the stem and started for his hiding place. Since the
>pot was a very wet mixture of peat with no covering of moss, his trail
>was invisible. I found his adventure quite amusing, I picked him up
>with a pair of tweezers before he made his escape and released him into
>the wilds of my backyard. Now, if instead of eating flies he had
>chewed on my plant the outcome might not have been so pleasant! :-)
>
>Take care,
>
>Demetrios
I recently caught a small snail eating the fungus gnats off my Drosera
schizandra. I decided to leave him/her in the terrarium just for fun.
John Phillips Email: phillips@library.ucsf.edu Information Services UCSF
Health Sciences Library Rm 202 San Francisco, CA 94143-0840
Ph:(415) 476-8383 FAX:(415) 476-7940