Convincing a vft it is live food

[jimscott]

I've put them in our lab fridge. Within 10 minutes the flies are asleeep. Thenall you have to do is take them out, put them in a trap, and wait for them to wake up. they struggle and the trap does its enzyme thing. Mwahahaha!

 

[Jason Wong]

I see what ya'll do in your free time

Seems to be the norm around here...

I usually catch fruit flies with a lightweight 'suprermarket container' + my darn fast reflexes...actually quite stupid to be running round caching fruit flies, might be easier to breed them. I saw a reptile website with a 'recipe' for fruitflies. They sell fruitflies eggs in a vial for breeding...or for eating

Are fuit flies supposed to live for only a day? maybe I should try experiments...do they need more oxygen, more food, or what? Because I don't give them either...and my stock dies after a day or less. Once I left a banana in a container, never knew how the flies got in...but they did somehow and soon I had my very own fruitfly community. Cool or what? My mum didn't think so, almost 'died' when she first saw my community, there were bout hundred eggs or so in the banana, and the smell will NOT go away form the container, however long I soak it in soap water. The stench was applling when I first opened it, I can tell you that

BCK, a wha? I thought it got it butt stuck inside, not its head. Did you do that or it just happened 'incidently'?? Hmmmm?

Jason

 

[Darwin]

Quote[/b] (Stevie D @ May 27 2004,11:11)]Perhaps the bugs you're using are too small and their body temperature is dropping too fast, since there's not much mass and latent warmth to them. I'd expect that, the larger the bug, the larger the 'window' of time where the bug is asleep, but not quite dead.

Possibly, maybe just 10 seconds more or less could mean life or death for some bugs.

Quote[/b] (jon @ May 28 2004,1:51)]The freezer will kill flies, now the refridgerator, on the other hand, works much better. They live up to 3 days in a jar if kept in the refridgerator.

Yeah they live, but I want them asleep so I can pick them up without them flying away. The freezer doesn't kill them if you don't put them in too long. I don't think my fridge is very cold because flies aren't even docile when they come out.

 

[Darwin]

Quote[/b] (Jason Wong @ May 28 2004,2:46)]I see what ya'll do in your free time

Seems to be the norm around here...

Yep, we go out hunting to catch meals for a pet plant  

What's not normal about that... 

 

[jon]

Quote[/b] (Darwin @ May 28 2004,11:29)]Yeah they live, but I want them asleep so I can pick them up without them flying away. The freezer doesn't kill them if you don't put them in too long. I don't think my fridge is very cold because flies aren't even docile when they come out.

They do go asleep in the refridge, if they don't, then your fridge aint cold enough.

 

[sindarin]

Seattle has been rainy the best few days (big surprise huh?) which usually drives the spiders inside. Sure enough, this morning a wolf spider skittered out from under my bed. I clapped a jar over it thinking "A-ha! I have a plant friend who'd like to talk to you about hanging out inside..." but as I got a look at it I thought better of it. This was a meaty spider -- probably half the size of my biggest trap. So I threw it outside with a stern warning.

Question: Would the refrigerator trick put a spider to sleep? I'd kept an ant in there for over an hour and it didn't work. The thing was as hyper as ever. I keep the 'fridge cold enough for a bit of ice on the milk (I like the crunch) so the temperature should be fine...

 

[now_what_do_i_need]

i have been wanting to ask you all
something
why not just swat the flys and put them in the traps like i do
sorry eddy

 

[jon]

Quote[/b] (now_what_do_i_need @ May 28 2004,2:58)]i have been wanting to ask you all
something
why not just swat the flys and put them in the traps like i do
sorry   eddy

Because live food is better then dead food.

The traps usually know if the bug is dead because it's not fighting or moving (triggering the hairs more and more) and won't digest as much as they should.

It's a really nifty product of evolution. If something lands in the trap and triggers it and isn't moving, then it must not be a bug, so why waste the energy and enzimes on something it won't get nutrients from.

Plants...their smarter then we think...

 

[Darwin]

Quote[/b] (jon @ May 28 2004,6:47)]They do go asleep in the refridge, if they don't, then your fridge aint cold enough.

Then I guess my fridge ain't cold enough. (which it isn't because we turned it down after my dad complained about there being ice in the milk).

Quote[/b] (sindarin @ May 28 2004,7:18)]Seattle has been rainy the best few days

I wish it would rain here in England lol... (I shouldn't have to say that... I blame global warming). I'm sick of buying reverse-osmosis treated water.

Quote[/b] (sindarin @ May 28 2004,7:18)]
Question: Would the refrigerator trick put a spider to sleep?

I doubt it. I've only had luck with freezing flies, other insects seem to be too hardy for the fridge, but die in the freezer.

 

[jimscott]

VFT's are dependent upon live food struggling, so that it stimulates them to secrete the enzymes to derive its nutrients. Conversely, wind, water, debris, etc..., often cause a trap to close, but since it has nothing beneficial to offer the plant - it reopens in a day. A non-struggling piece of whatever is inefficient for them. That is why they evolved a way of distinguishing real food from random annoyances.

 

[jon]

Quote[/b] (jimscott @ May 29 2004,7:15)]Conversely, wind, water, debris, etc..., often cause a trap to close,

I've noticed that water usually doesn't case them to close (oddly enought).

 

[now_what_do_i_need]

hay
i was thinking the same thing
eddy

 

[HellzDungeon]

O, i just had a stroke of Genius

when feeding multiple traps, use dead food, but get a daddylonglegs, and rip the legs off. then, put a leg, along with a dead bug and it should work. daddylonglegs' legs twitch and move after u take them off. so it will stimulate the trigger hairs and it will eat both the bug and the leg

yay, time to look for daddylonglegs

 

[BigCarnivourKid]

Quote[/b] (Jason Wong @ May 28 2004,7:46)]BCK, a wha? I thought it got it butt stuck inside, not its head. Did you do that or it just happened 'incidently'?? Hmmmm?  

That is the way I found it when I got home from work. The butt was wiggling around as it tried to back out of the trap. Since it was the business end sticking out, I didn't feel to much guilt over not grabbing hold and pulling it out. I have only been stung a couple times and that was too many.

 

[pooplol]

I just swat flys lightly, it ussaly hurts them bad enough that they can't fly any more and boom easy meal

 

[Jason Wong]

You want a squishing competition then YOU'VE GOT IT! Why, I usually catch flies with an empty lightweight container and sometimes they fly into the wrong place (like where the container actually seals off), and get SQUISHED...ok I'm feeling sick (I thought the red stuff was blood but then realised it came from the redish part of the fruitfly's eyeballs...

Quote[/b] ]Since it was the business end sticking out, I didn't feel to much guilt over not grabbing hold and pulling it out.  I have only been stung a couple times and that was too many.

That's too d@mn funny ROFLMAO!

Wiping away tears...sorry...why'd you get stung, too curious? rods bee nest: zzzzz OUCH! lol

 

[BigCarnivourKid]

Quote[/b] (Jason Wong @ May 31 2004,4:05)]why'd you get stung, too curious?

When I was a kid I managed to step on a bee when I was barefoot.  It took exception to being stepped on and stung the bottom of my foot

.  Another time, I was driving with my window down and a wasp ricocheted of my sideview mirror, then off the top off the door frame, into my car, hitting the carseat and falling in behind me where it stung me on the back once before it got assphixiated (I jerked forward quickly when it stung me and it fell into the seat under me as I leaned back = assphixated

)

 

[Greenis]

I just let go world's of the toughest cricket. First, I accidently took off one of his legs trying to catch him. Then, when I tried to feed him to my VFT he kicked it and made it close before he could get in there. Since I had him clamped in tweezers, I just locked the tweezers shut and left him clamped there over night to wait for the trap to reopen. In the morning he was STILL alive (Having being crushed in tweezers all night) and I re-fed him to my VFT. The trap closed,and I thought I was done finally. The next day the dang cricket is missing and I later find him floating around in the VFT water dish. I reach to pluck him out and he's STILL alive. After losing a leg, being crushed for 12 hours, being (attempted) eaten in a slow killing fly trap, and partially drowned, I just wanted to get rid of him! I took him outside to my deck (Im on the 2nd floor) and was going to put him in a nearby hanging bush when he jumped off my deck. I looked down and he was hopping away. I have to say, that is one TOUGH cricket. Good thing he's gone too, he was eating all of the smaller crickets. Ick.

 

[jimscott]

Now that's Readers Digest material! If that cricket comes back human form and meets you, he or she may express an opinion or two of mixed feelings.

 

[jimscott]

Quote[/b] (jon @ May 29 2004,10:02)]

Quote[/b] (jimscott @ May 29 2004,7:15)]Conversely, wind, water, debris, etc..., often cause a trap to close,

I've noticed that water usually doesn't case them to close (oddly enought).

I was the Home Depot today, doing my cashiering thing, and noticed that they just got in a new batch of VFT's - a decent batch. They were displayed right below cacti and succulents. I saw a piece of a broken succulent in a trap and it closed around it.

Since they were placed in the plastic protective dome without water, I collected rainwater and began pouring the water through the 2" pots. Even though water got into some of the traps they did NOT close. I stand corrected about the water.

5 of them were sold today, in spite of a totally rainy day and fear fewer customers.