FlytrapCare Carnivorous Plant Forums

These are Sminthurinus atrapallidus. They are a springtail that feed on fungi. In my experience working as an entomology assistant, these have never been thought of as any concern to damaging the plants themselves. If your seeing a large population of them, you might want to think about using a fungicide.

I found this bug on my vft and it moved fairly quickly when i went to grab it with tweezers however it fell of one of the stems of the plant and I got it. It appeared as an extremely tiny white dot that I only noticed since it was moving. I'm not sure what it was so I put it under a microscope at 10x zoom and well here is the picture. I can't visibly see white dots covering my plant but i did notice some small black dots about the same size on the underside of one of the stems. Picture of tiny white dot: https://www.dropbox.com/s/yu3seoby9ruxm ... .58.51.jpg I don't know how to post a picture so i do a link. Please help me! I don't want Spikey to die!

flytrapidge7 wrote:I found this bug on my vft and it moved fairly quickly when i went to grab it with tweezers however it fell of one of the stems of the plant and I got it. It appeared as an extremely tiny white dot that I only noticed since it was moving. I'm not sure what it was so I put it under a microscope at 10x zoom and well here is the picture. I can't visibly see white dots covering my plant but i did notice some small black dots about the same size on the underside of one of the stems. Picture of tiny white dot: https://www.dropbox.com/s/yu3seoby9ruxm ... .58.51.jpg I don't know how to post a picture so i do a link. Please help me! I don't want Spikey to die!

Hey man, don't stress. It''s certainly not a mite, thrip, or whitefly. It's hard to tell from the pic, but it could be an immature aphid (if you can get a better pic from the top that would help) which are easy to take care of (spray off with some pressured water from the hose). They aren't that harmful in low numbers but will certainly suck the life out of the plant when the population starts building. Can you give me more details, are they slow moving?

Here ill take a pic of em

Sorry my phone is out of battery and it is taking a long time to charge. But im just seeing little black dots on the leafs.. (not the traps) on the top and on the underside. They r smaller than the first guy and i think the first guy was probably just an odd one out. It's not covered with em at all and I'm not sure if is just dirt because Spikey was transplanted 2 weeks ago or so. (i only see possible dirt on underside) I'm really paranoid about growing this plant and I hope Spikey will be best free. When I went to grab one just by touching it with my finger it didn't move so I just tossed it aside. I look at it closer and I don't see any movment. It may just be microscopic. But-Oh here r the pictures!
https://www.dropbox.com/s/pb6tdu87q0d7y ... .27.08.jpg
https://www.dropbox.com/s/ggyqnnvk6zgvp ... .27.58.jpg
Those were the 2 best picture i took I hope they help. Please get back to me I might wake up only to find Spikey is covered with pests.

Really impossible to tell with those pics but there doesn't look to be damage. Give us an update to let us know how spikey turns out!

Would be awesome to have pictures of the condition of each plant when these bugs take over..

Some of my Venus flytraps have dark spots on them.. I don't know if it's because of a bug or just sun spots. D: Was trying to look up on google what the plant would look like, couldn't find anything

Hey guys.
I'm new here and was asking a few questions about dormancy for seedlings a few days ago; I got replies, bought a new lamp and was generally happy about my small VFT growing here in cold Latvia...
And just now this happened.
I spent last night not at home, now I've just come home to find the seedling destroyed by some very tiny transparent worms (I understand now they must be the fungus larvae). I cannot imagine where they suddenly came from, everything seemed ok just yesterday, before I left... It's cold outside, no insects there now, and there are no flies at home, not a single one.
My plant is finished but I intend to buy another pack of seeds again, as I was really glad to have grown a VFT from a seed here in LV where they are not a common thing to come across, and I have already bought the 6500k lamp for it, too...
*sad*
So how to avoid the larvae (or anything else) in the future when growing VFT from a seed? Since they showed up over night and destroyed the tiny plant so quickly, I guess I must make sure they just never show up, since I cannot be present to watch it 24/7.
Also, if someone is by chance willing to post to me whatever pesticide I might need in the beginning, I'd be happy and willing to pay for everything (PayPal, for example). I doubt it very much we here have the necessary stuff at all...

Thank you!

Also, please, tell me there was nothing I could do to save the eaten seedling? There was almost nothing left of it (both the tiny 2 first leaves were gone) and I'm not sure about the root but as far as I understand being so small it cannot survive without leaves, right?

Can anyone name this pest?

This is the exact larvae that killed my P. cyclosecta this past summer. I found the leaves were dying for no apparent reason, and decided to investigate. I found 10 or so larvae living on the rhizome under the soil.




Large toothpick for reference (toothpick is double size of normal toothpick)


Now, I am finding much smaller versions of what look like the same larvae on top of the soil in my pot holding 3 D. spatulata and 1 D. aliciae. I tried isolating a couple on a plate using 150x magnification. Neem oil did kill the isolated larvae. I treated the pot with spot-treatment of neem oil, and there are still plenty of living larvae.


I poured water to make the vast number of larvae visible.


Isolated laevae on single perlite slightly zoomed with camera lens


2 larvae on perlite zoomed with 150x magnification lens plus camera lens zoom

Starchy wrote:Can anyone name this pest?

That's a fungus gnat larvae. They're harmless to fully grown plants. I doubt they killed your P. cyclosecta but rather were eating the dead or dying leaves.

I was hoping thats what it was. Thanks Matt.

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Starchy wrote:I was hoping thats what it was. Thanks Matt.

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I posted this in an other thread a few days ago. How to get rid of fungus gnats

1. You can try letting the soil dry a little more before watering next time and the larva will dry out.

2. Or I've read you can place a cut potato on the soil and the larva will start to eat that and you just throw away the potato after a night along with the larva that are eating it.

3. You can try mixing some peroxide and water and pouring it over the soil to saturate it. It's 1 part peroxide and 4 parts water.

4. Or if you use mosquito dunks or mosquito bits, they are proven to work on fungus gnats as well. 1/4 of a dunk, crushed, or about a tablespoon of bits in a gallon of water over night. Use that to top water your plants over the next 3-4 weeks per your regular watering schedule.

Thanks Parker. I went with a high dose of neem oil. I mixed pure neem extract with distilled water (0.5 oz per 36oz bottle) and soaked the soil for 2 minutes. Then flushed the soil with distilled water. Looks like they are all dead, but I plan to repeat in a week.

Hi guys,

In your article you state some pesticides/miticides/ .. but they are only available in the US/UK, but I can't find them here in Belgium (EU), so it would be nice for EU-growers to know which brands are safe to use.

here is one: ECOstyle - Spruzit-R. it's a miticide, I used it against last week against spider mites.

cheers !