FlytrapCare Carnivorous Plant Forums

Hi all! I was hoping to get some advice on what might have happened to my adult vft. I woke up this morning and found that one of its flytraps had rather abruptly fallen off! After inspecting the plant more closely, I also noticed some areas that seemed to show signs of having gotten chomped on by a pest of some sort. Does anyone know what might be causing this problem?










I do have some neem oil here with me - I'm assuming that would be the best action to take for now? Let me know also if there are other points of context I could provide that could potentially be useful. I appreciate the help!

Zach

optique wrote: ↑Fri May 21, 2021 4:26 pm It could have been anything bird, cat, deer, squirrel, opossum, even Joshuamarshall's little brother.

Lol.Good reference to the little brother thing there.

Haha. Yes I think I might have sort of buried the lead here - I guess what's most concerning to me isn't the beheading itself, but the signs that something has been eating into the flytrap leaves (which I'm assuming was the cause of the beheading as well). I'm thinking that these are signs of some sort of infestation of something? I looks like some small pest has been eating a trail into the leaves at certain points (as depicted above).

Thanks again for the help!

Zach

Judging by the bites, check for caterpillars or worms.

Looking at the bites they look like it could have been chewed by a cat. My old cat used to love to go and poke around my plant. Maybe it bit the trap off and then spat it out, I seen my current cat do this with other plants, thankfully he's not interested in my CPs.

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Interesting ideas - thank you everyone for the help! I was doing some research online and have started to come under impression that the problem might actually be spider mites - I had noticed some cobwebbing inside a few of the traps in the days leading up to the beheading, and then after making my original posts I found a small bug that seemed to resemble the pictures of spider mites that I'm seeing online. Is it possible that spider mites could have caused the type of damage depicted in the photos above? I sprayed the plant with neem oil (just once), snipped off the leaves that were showing bite marks, and then have been trying to keep the sphagnum on the moister side. Would love to get some perspective though on whether or not I'm on the right track here? The bug I found was small but not microscopic, and it looked sort of like a tick.

I haven't seen any worms or caterpillars, but will definitely continue to check for them! Haha and then there do sometimes seem to be stray cats roaming around the area, so I guess that would be a possibility as well. The bites seem rather small to me to have come from a cat, but I guess it's hard to know for sure! Maybe a kitten haha.

Thanks again!

EDIT: I'm reading now that you might be able to eradicate spider mites by immersing the plant in water (for 6o seconds or so)? Has anyone tried this? Would anyone vehemently recommend/caution against it?

I haven't tried this, but I submerge the flytraps in my bog garden on a regular basis when I flood it. As long as their roots aren't in water for days upon days, there will be no ill effect.

I don't see any signs of mite damage on the plants, which is usually the only way to identify them. They're far too small to notice until they cause damage. I'd say there definitely isn't any mite problem on the plant in the photos. The trauma I can see looks like it was caused by a bird or other large animal, not a small pest.

evenwind wrote:I tried it. All I got was some clean and shiny spider mites.

Joshuamarshall792 wrote: ↑Sun May 23, 2021 6:55 pm My little brother did not travel to another state he is *6* he can't even drive lol I don't care if it's a joke or not, not funny

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The very definition of laugh out loud is that you found it funny.

Young Joshua, you have no idea who is on the other end of the messages, what they experienced in life, or how close autism is to them or their family. So please do not make assumptions or let autism define you. It’s part of who you are, it’s not ALL of who you are.

Hi again! Thanks for the help. Wanted to check in as well on these yellowing/blackening leaves that I've noticed on the plant over the past few days....









I know that it's normal for the older traps to die off - I guess what I've seen in the past is that they typically start dying from around the flytrap itself though, rather than from further down towards the base. The yellowing is also sort of new to me/not something I recognize from before. Is this anything to be concerned about or just a case of the VFT getting rid of its older traps like normal?

Thank you!--

Zach

Looks like normal browning and yellowing on older traps, particularly around areas where they were damaged. I don't see anything to be concerned about.