> > Anyone else have experience with "invertebrate megafauna?"
> I had a experience with large tree crickets getting caught in
> Sarracenia pitchers. These crickets are about 5cm in length, pale
> brown in colour with very large, powerful mandibles for cutting up
> plant material. Thus when attempting to remove them from the house
> it is unwise to remove them cupped in your hands as they can inflict
> a painful bite. On the occasions when my plants have caught them
> (mostly S. leucophylla and S. flava) the crickets have been able to
> get there
> own back in their dying moments by chewing a bloody great hole in the
> side
> of the pitcher. One unfortunat individual ended up wedged head first
> in the
> bottom of a pitcher but still managed to start to chew its way out.
> I suspect the crickets are looking for somewhere to shelter and get
> trapped. It is very gratifying to note however that a common prey
> item in my Sarracenias are introduced/feral European wasps. These
> wasps are a recently established pest species and like anything sweet
> to eat. Obviously they find the nectaries of Sarracenias
> irresistable.
This sounds like it's becoming some sort of a "weird & wonderful"
contest, so I guess I'll enter my own contestants! How about dead aquarium
fish? Or even live small fish and tadpoles to see if and how long they
survive? And also dead geckos! Or maybe just the live gecko tail, which
you can enjoy watching while it wiggles around madly at the bottom of the
pitcher!! They're vertebrates, but what the heck! Can they still run in
the contest?????? 8)
Fernando Rivadavia
Sao Paulo, Brazil