Lightning bugs

[Nicholas_Bostaph]

I know that fireflies generate light through some kind of chemical reaction, but are the chemicals in that reaction hazardous to a VFT? They're extremely easy to catch and control, making them great live food. Yeah, I know I'm going to get yelled at by at least one person for hurting the poor defenseless cute little fireflies. But, hey, they're bugs...I hate bugs.

Here's a somewhat related question. I repotted my VFTs into my terrarium 3 days ago when they arrived from PFT. The Dente is doing okay but the common looks a bit under the weather as its repotting experience was a bit traumatic. I'd like to help it get well. Would feeding it give it the nutrients it needs to rebound or would that take more energy than it's worth?


Thanks!

 

[Jmenprkr]

i just got an idea
i dont know if it will be harful to a plant
but take a few of those bugs and squish them and put them on the vft for glow in the dark vfts

 

[vft guy in SJ]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (Nicholas_Bostaph @ July 12 2003,03:17)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">Here's a somewhat related question.  I repotted my VFTs into my terrarium 3 days ago when they arrived from PFT.  The Dente is doing okay but the common looks a bit under the weather as its repotting experience was a bit traumatic.  I'd like to help it get well.  Would feeding it give it the nutrients it needs to rebound or would that take more energy than it's worth?[/QUOTE]<span id='postcolor'>
Best bet is to give it lots of light and let it be.  I know the temptation is strong to "play" with your new toy, but if you want the plant to have the best success its better not to fiddle too much too fast. Your soil is prolly still a lil too wet and that could be contributing to the poor look of the plant right now. Give it a couple weeks of good light and keep tabs on how much water you give it.. I suspect that in a couple days as the standing water in the bowl is absorbed and evaporates you will start to see improvement. Its possible that all the existing leaves will die and the plant will start again. Keep an eye on it and you should start to see new growth from the center of the plant. At that point if the plant is looking a lil stronger and you have open traps then try to feed it and it should be fine.
Good luck
Steve

 

[Belfrie]

Did we ever conclude whether or not the firefly's glow stuffs is toxic to the VFT? (Too side thoughts on that though, I'm picturing one in a closed trap and the trap blinking. Also blue dye in the water of carnations making the carnation blue, the chemicals of the firefly making the whole flytrap glow in the dark.)

 

[Teraphage]

I'm fairly sure fireflies should be perfectly safe for any of your cps. There's nothing dangerous or unusual within the body of these insects, it's just an amazing natural phenomena. In a nutshell, fireflies have things called lantern cells. These contain compartments with lots of luceriferin and luciferase, which are just proteins with a very cool ability. When they are exposed to oxygen they are able to luminesce, or light up. The chemicals and molecules in this reaction are made up of the same building blocks as found in the components of your plants, so the plant will just break down the firefly like any other bug. Have fun.

 

[Belfrie]

Coo, Thank you.

If my plant isn't too full I've got to try it to see if you can see it glow through the trap. (On the other hand though, isn't their glow like a mating call? I don't imagine if I were a firefly and something were eating me that i would be too concerned with mating at that time.) Only one way to find out I guess, now that I know it isn't toxic to my trap, (because I only got the one VFT so far...)

 

[elgecko]

I kept toads when I was younger and fed them fireflies. It was neat to see the toads stomach light up from the inside after they ate them.

 

[Belfrie]

It takes so little to amuse me sometimes.

BTW elgecko, I liked your website. I got a "rotarty wood-carving kit" for christmas a while back, but I use it on pumpkins instead. I've got a geocities website too, but not nearly as fancy as your. If you want to check it out. It has my Jackolantern's, Ceramics, and the first set of pics from my recently started Carnivorous collection (they're on the plant page with my rose garden.)

Okay, enough shameless plugging, back to topic. I'm gonna test the fireflies out this weekend and hopefully get some pictures if it works. >added< The light showing through the trap part, not the glowing plant thing. (Although if the plant starts glowing I'll get pics too. LOL)

 

[Spectabilis73]

1) These plants are not toys, they are living things

 

2) Fireflys dont glow once they are dead (neither do the juices)
3) You should not feed each flytrap more than once a week.

 

[Belfrie]

I'm sorry if I upset you. I didn't mean it to sound as playful as it did, (that is my nature.) I hadn't fed it since it caught it's japanese beetle (a week ago.) and as I stated earlier I was only going to do it if it wasn't too full (meaning didn't catch anything on its own). The reason I thought it would be a good thing to test because as Nicholas said Fireflies are easier to catch than other bugs, and th closest place to buy live insects is an hours drive from where I live (why drive an hour and pay for insects when I can collect them in my own yard?) As for the glowing once they are dead, I know that, I was referring to when the trap first closes. I apologize if my words were misleading I did not intend to offend anyone.

In my mind it would be like if I wanted to find out if Kool-aid turns your tongue colors. I'm not going to drink an extra 20 gallons of kool-aid to find out, but if I get thirsty and Kool-aid isn't poisonous then why not drink some. it satiates the thirst and can answer the question (experiment) at the same time.

As for the light-hearted nature of it. If a child ate a non-toxic glow-in-the-dark crayola crayon, who wouldn't laugh when the child smiled?

That is all just my thoughts on it, again, Im sorry for offending you.

 

[elgecko]

Belfrie,

"enough shameless plugging". So what, what an easy way to get your site out there for people to stop by?
Thanks for the kind words on my site. I had lots of time to build my site when I did. After 8 years of being an Electrical Panel Shop Superevisor, at the begining of Oct. 02, my position was eliminated, so were alot of other peoples jobs.

I thought with my experience I would have no problem finding a new job. I worked a few places that liked my work, but were not busy enough to hire me. I've finally find a job, making only half what I used to.

oh well.
The Jackolantern's are neat, and your buttwort does look very crispy. From the information I read they do not like full sun. I keep mine were it recieves morning and evening sun and it's growing great. Hope yours recovers.

 

[Trapsrock]

Im not suppose to be posting, cause my falcon needs tons of care, but anyways, Spec is right here, there not suppose to catch more than a few a week, I mean, out in the wild, they wouldnt have someone shoving bugs in there traps all the time, these are wild plants, that humans have just began...Begun...begun to domesticate. There not little plastic toys that dont die if you feed them too much, and belfire, you shouldnt have fed yours a beetle. Beetle's have hard shells that a venus flytraps digestive juices cannot penetrate, therefore the trap dies leaving the dead beetle perfectly intact. You should really read before posting you fed em beetles, lol.... (happy oz?)

And another thing, the VFT doesnt light up once you feed it the Lightning bug, and it has a hard time changing color when you dye the water, you shouldnt be talking about experiementing on your VFT like its some toy, many people get a little cooko over this and turn into the people on Predatoryfish, im almost at that level. right when you get them you cant shove there traps full, and kill them...

And that Kool-Aid thing belfire, some glue is non-toxic, are you gonna drink glue?


Just my two sense, sorry, Im a little bit irratble, I got my liscense for this bird yesterday and hes going nuts.

 

[Ozzy]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (Spectabilis73 @ July 18 2003,3:45)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">2) Fireflys dont glow once they are dead (neither do the juices)[/QUOTE]<span id='postcolor'>
Ever pinched their heads while they are glowing? They still glow after their dead.

 

[Darcie]

Firefly: An insect that can produce light through chemical reaction. It's diet as a youngster causes many spiecies to be mildly toxic or at the very least taste horrible. During the day, their bright red and orange warning colors let the world know how yucky they are. This howerver will not stop surtain creatures from eating them inclueding toads which are immune to many many toxins in addition to producing their own leathle venums. If crushed, the chemicals in a fireflies body may mix causing the same reaction normally seen live insects lights. Like all insects, the "brain" or nerve coil of a firefly is located in the body and while the removel of the head prevents feeding, and some sences, it will not kill the animal. Because of this, they will continue to try and attract a mate even if they won't survive long run. Not that it matters, most spiecies die after reproduction. It should be noted that some spiecies of fireflies are protected by law for the verry reson that they are so easy to capture.

VFT: These plants are highly sensitive to water impurities and I would not recomend experimenting with color additives, however, I'll leave those choices up to each plants owner. As far as feeding a firefly to a VFT goes, well, feeding any insect with warning colors on it is "playing with fire" so to speek (sorry, bad joke). However, again, trying it out is up to each owner, although personally I would think most are too large for VFTs.

 

[Ozzy]

When I've seen people squish the heads on lightning bugs, they died instantly, of course I've never done that myself, but I've seen others do it. You have to squeeze the head when they light up and they will stay lit up for quite a while after they have died.
If they are poisonous to vft's, I'm sure that if one was fed to a plant only the single trap would die, and not the whole plant. Since vft's can't choose it's pray I think they may be it's defense if it get something poisonous, to let the trap die instead of taking the poisons to the root. I have no facts to back that up, it's just my observation.

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote </td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">However, again, trying it out is up to each owner, although personally I would think most are too large for VFTs.[/QUOTE]<span id='postcolor'>
I don't know what kind of giant lightning bugs you have in Michigan but the lightning bugs I've seen in North Carolina and Ohio are definitely small enough for vft's to eat. I've never seen any lightning bug too big for even a medium sized vft to eat, and I've lived most of my life in the vft natural range.
Then again maybe you just grow tiny vft's.

 

[Darcie]

Well, it's easy to squish the thorax with the head because their head sheild ususally covers it making it look like a head I suppose. I've never done it myself, just read about it.

As to giant fireflies or tiney vfts, it's the bugs. We have many many spiecies here, but most are around 1 inch long.

 

[Trapsrock]

My Falcon is asleep finally! Anyways, thats what I thought, could have sworn they were very toxic to VFT's as a long time ago there was a discussion about them being toxic. Anyways, see the later guys.

 

[Ozzy]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (Darcie @ July 19 2003,10:04)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">As to giant fireflies or tiney vfts, it's the bugs.  We have many many spiecies here, but most are around 1 inch long.[/QUOTE]<span id='postcolor'>
Well most of my traps are around 2" long, making your 1" lightning bug a perfect size snack for my vft's.

 

[Belfrie]

Well, I didn't get to try it out, because by friday every trap but one had caught a bug on it's own. (One had the wing of the bug sticking out of the trap, it look ed like a fly.) As for the beetle, the trap it was in seems fine.

 

[goldtrap2690]

cool , i always wanted to have fire flies , do you think you can catch some for me and ship em over here .