Ant Feast

Demetrio Lamzaki (Dee_Lamzaki@msn.com)
Fri, 31 May 96 16:10:35 UT

The first ant colony of the season has discovered my Sarracenia, the
plant they seem to be focusing their attention on for now is a S. x
mooreana. Every pitcher on it has a ring of ants around its mouth and a
highway of them going up and down its tube. To reach it they have to
travel through a minefield of purpurea venosa, their pitchers have many
casualties floating on the surface of the liquid, some ants just got a
little too curious.

The rest of the Sarracenia have pitchers overflowing with prey, mostly flies
and large moths, it's too early yet for yellow jackets in any numbers. It's
gotten so bad in some that a fly simply falls about an inch or so and then
lands on the previous prey, brushes himself off and flies out again. From a
just opened pitcher to being full sometimes takes less than two days, even
though their hoods are not fully extended and their mouths are not expanded
completely it still doesn't stop flies from entering them and being caught!
The volume of prey they catch is amazing. Well, that concludes the Jungle
update.

Regards,

Demetrios