FlytrapCare Carnivorous Plant Forums

Hi there. Hope you can help. I purchased 3 beautiful healthy vft's two days ago,however they slow cooked in the heat of the car while i visited family and they were in full sun,it was for only two hours so i did not imagine damage would be done, but by the time i got home their traps were all closed and they were brown and clearly burned. So i cut all their leaves off and will have to see if they will survive. So anyhow yesterday i purchased another Vft. When i bought him, one trap had an insect inside but the trap was open, the novice i am, i tried removing it with tweesers and yup the trap closed. Today the trap re opened. I thought perhaps the insect would naturally fall out because there was a nice breeze outside,but no deal. So this evening i tried to remove the insect again, and yet again the trap shut. Now i know that shutting traps too often for no reason uses alot of energy, and the trap dies off, does the energy wasted, shorten the life span of the whole plant or just the actual trap? Also how do i rid this trap of the insect carcass? The dead insect does'nt even look like a empty shell, it is still in perfect form, in my opinion! Does that mean my Vft did not digest it to begin with? And finally... The reason i've been so hell bent on removing the dead insect is because the trap it's in has got a little black spot on each side of its trap and i read that that could be caused by bacteria etc that came off the insect, so can any one suggest what i should do? Must i leave it well alone and hope the insect falls off, do i attempt yet again to remove it myself thus draining even more energy from my plant? And if so, how? And what about the black spots on the trap? Should i just cut the trap off insect inside and all, even tho the rest of the trap is green and healthy? Many questions i know but i dont want to lose yet another Vft before i even get a chance to enjoy it! Will appreciate any tips suggestions etc. Thanks...

There is no need to remove dead insects in traps unless you don't like looking at them. There are several threads about the subject here on the FlytrapCare forums. I can't recall all of the suggestions, but I think some people use a spray bottle to spray the insect carcasses out with water, others use tweezers to carefully remove them without triggering the traps. If you use the Advanced Search feature (in the top right corner of any page), you should be able to find those threads. Personally I don't remove any carcasses from traps.

Black traps happen on occasion when traps catch bugs. Usually it happens while the trap is sealed, so removing the carcass won't help with that too much.

And I've noticed you've posted the same question about 10 times now. I've been deleting the duplicates. Please only post the same question once and give people just a bit of time to respond

Oh, and welcome to FlytrapCare!

Thanks for your advice. Sorry about the many posts sent. I don't have access to a pc at the moment and sent this via my mobile. Each time i tried sending off my post i got a message to say it failed so i tried til it said it went thru. Next time i'll hopefully get it right. I think i'll just leave the insect then, was just worried about the trap blackening due to bacteria caused by the insect. Sorry again for many repeated posts. Kind regards

Ive found trying to remove an insect from a trap, i was usually setting off 2 or 3 traps close to it too.
Now i just leave them unless they are making the trap go mouldy.

And if they do go mouldy? Should the trap be removed? Cos won't the rest of the plant get sick? Due to mold?

PhAlLeN wrote:And if they do go mouldy? Should the trap be removed? Cos won't the rest of the plant get sick? Due to mold?

Nah, not unless you're keeping the plant too wet. I often see moldy insect carcasses on the plants in the greenhouse and they don't negatively affect the plants.

The black spots is beacuse of the insects body came out and the bacteria managed to enter. For the insects body, you know....when it got digested, the meat all disappear and the only thing left is the shell, so fungi wont bother to grow on there as there is no meat

I usually just leave the carcass of dead insects inside the trap, because I believe they attract spiders, so its probably why so many of my traps have spiders in them