Search the Community

Monitoring Venus Flytraps in Florida: Amazing 1-year timelapse About 1500 km south of their native habitats in the Carolinas, Venus flytraps (Dionaea muscipula), propagated from seeds, find a comparable environment in open long leaf pine forest on the property of Bill Scholl in northern Florida. Originally, they relied on occasional wildfires that remove not only dry undergrowth but also the wiregrass that often grows over them. Presently, on Bill’s property, they benefit from controlled burns done by Bill and his burn team to manage the habitat. ften only the parts of the Venus flytraps near the surface are killed by the fire so they quickly resprout in areas cleared of overgrowth, although, where wiregrass is abundant it rapidly grows over the flytraps. In the summer, tropical storms and hurricanes are common with heavy rains that temporally inundate the Venus flytraps. A controlled burn was done on the forest surrounding the Venus flytraps in this timelapse in April, the effects of which can easily be seen in this amazing timelapse over the complete year of 2022. We (Irmgard and myself) edited and produced this film in collaboration with Dr. Stephen Williams (USA), who assembled the timelapse sequences from daily photos taken by a stationary wildlife camera, and Bill Scholl, who did the video monitoring on his property.