Earlier I'd posted a little grasshopper that was too big to be caught by sundew plants (genus Drosera). This fire ant (Solenopsis invicta) was not so lucky. Sundews are carnivorous plants that catch their prey with a sticky substance. They live in areas near water in which the sandy soil does not provide much in the way of nutrients, so they have evolved to take advantage of other sources of nutrition. Somewhere I have a picture of another carnivorous plant "eating" a mosquito larva (baby mosquito, sort of like a caterpillar compared to a butterfly or moth, that lives in water) and I'll try to find that and post it also.
You Made Bugwatching Number One!
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I learned recently that my new book, Bugwatching: The Art, Joy, and
Importance of Observing Insects, is, or was, number one in the "Outdoor and
Nature Refe...
Is it bad form to root for the plant? Because I'm no fan of fire ants. As always, awesome pic. And no, that pun wasn't intended but after re-reading I had to leave it in.
ReplyDeleteThe data on fire ants from Walter Tschinkel at FSU is interesting, as it seems to show that, although fire ants appeared to stampede over native species when they first became established, they do not compete with most of our native ants all that much except for a native fire ant. On the other hand, I'm rooting for the plant too. :)
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