Date: Thu, 14 Jan 1999 14:39:53 -0500 From: Tom Massey <massey@hal.fmhi.usf.edu> To: cp@opus.hpl.hp.com Message-Id: <aabcdefg101$foo@default> Subject: frog eating Sarrs.
Well, the topic heading is part in jest (or is it part ingest!- HA), but I
happened to be looking at my Sarrs. the other day and found two pitchers
whose contents included a dead frog. In one case the pitcher (a large
lueco.) had died and toppled over right where the frog was wedged. When
the pitcher split the legs ended up dangling out of the broken half of the
pitcher.
After seeing this I started looking around and found a second plant, a
rubra x purp. hybrid, that had a dead frog floating in the soup at the
bottom of the pitcher. So far this hasn't damaged the pitcher, but I don't
know how long the frog has been there, so who knows?
As I and other people on the list have reported before, frogs often sit in
Nep and Sarr. pitchers during the day, retreating out of reach down the
pitcher tube when they are disturbed. Then at night, they emerge and feed
on the moths that are attracted to the pitchers.
For these two, the only thing I can guess is that they may be more the
victims of cold weather than victims of overachieving plants. We have had
one of our few cold spells over the last month, and while we never got
below freezing, we did have one night down to the mid thirties. In both
cases the frogs were nose up, and I suspect that they remained in the
pitchers as temperatures dropped hoping to gain protection from the cold,
only to be trapped when temps fell to far. I have no idea how sensitive
frogs are to cold weather, but I think my victims may be cuban tree frogs
rather than our native tree frogs, so perhaps that helps account. Anyway,
call Moulder and Scully, I wanna be on TV!
Tom in Fl.
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