- Tue Jul 24, 2012 5:56 pm
#149388
What kind of ants? If they bite/sting the inside of the trap, it damages the tissue in the trap and causes blackening of the area. The bug will still be digested, but the trap will not fully recover from capturing the prey.
Another possibility is that if you have only recently (in the last month, give or take) started growing the flytraps, they are not yet adjusted to conditions and will be much more prone to lose traps on new food captures, just as you described.
If traps that "sprouted" and formed while under your care (new traps) are having this issue, it's more likely the ants are damaging the trap after being caught.
Unless you haven't been growing the plant(s) very long, standard insect captures shouldn't kill every trap.
Keep your eye on it and send an update with specifics on whether every trap is dying, if new traps are dying or just old ones, and if only traps that capture the ants are the only traps that are dying.
This may just be coincidental with traps dying to make room for new trap growth, which is part of every flytrap's life cycle.