There's been a large number of lovebugs flying around lately. After looking the insects up on the internet, I found out that adults come up out of the ground to mate twice a year - in spring and again in late summer/early fall (article here). Obviously, the bugs I'm seeing are up for their late fall mating. Anyway, they are attracted to the Sarracenia, especially S. leucophylla, in large numbers. You're probably thinking, Wow!, what a surprising fact - so are lots of other insects. What is so unique about lovebugs? Well...they just fall in as if they're willingly sacrificing themselves. I'm guessing this is because of limited mobility due to their being stuck together. There are so many of these insects and they fall in so easily that many pitchers are full of them...
...so full that they are causing humongous brown spots - it looks like the whole pitcher is rotting. Some lids of affected pitchers are drying up. It seems kind of strange that a full pitcher would just rot away. Catching lots of insects should be normal. I suspect the pitcher rotting has something to do with the acidity of the dead lovebugs (a fact I read in this article).
I don't recall this happening in previous years.
1 Comment
Yumi Kang
12/27/2019 12:10:03 pm
Hi Chris,
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AuthorRising college student who enjoys growing carnivorous plants. Archives
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