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Drosera, Sunny days and ants


Little-Bacchus

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Well we have had some good sunny days and I have taken full advantage by running out first light with plants and bringing back in as the cooler nights draw in. The growth of the plants from this is amazing and each plant is sending up new leaf shoots every day. Along with this they are catching a huge amount of food. in a matter of hours most of the leaves have something stuck to them.

One plat got hold of an ant... I didn't know how it would cope with this and it didn't do well. Within a few ours the leaf was looking a little odd and I removed the ant but a few more hours on and the area where the ant had been looked 'burnt' for want of a better word. By that night the leaf was bent in half the section forward of the burn was flopping down and the area where the ant had been was soft and brown.

Without checking more I can only conjecture on what could have damaged the plant, the speed of damage makes me think it is something like the formic acid that is doing the damage. I have no idea if in time this would have allowed the ant to escape unharmed as it was already smothered and didn't make much of an attempt to move when removed from the leaf.

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Drosera have the strongest digestive system of all of the plants don't they? So the ant must have an oil on them... Drosera have a hard time digesting oils. 

 

I will have to look into it more and when I have more plants I will be testing just what they can and can't cope with.

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