Strange larvae in S. flava pitcher

From: Philip Semanchuk (mrbones@mindspring.com)
Date: Thu Sep 21 2000 - 07:04:36 PDT


Date: Thu, 21 Sep 2000 10:04:36 -0400
From: "Philip Semanchuk" <mrbones@mindspring.com>
To: cp@opus.hpl.hp.com
Message-Id: <aabcdefg2838$foo@default>
Subject: Strange larvae in S. flava pitcher

I was cleaning up my S. flava yesterday by removing some of the pitchers
that were dead at the top and had flopped over. I usually slice these
pitchers open to see what my plant has been eating (lots of Japanese
beetles, to my surprise). In one plant I found fresh blades of grass that
had been used as construction material to build seven little cylinders, each
about 2-3cm long, capped with grass and stacked on top of one another. I
opened one and found a whitish larva inside sitting on top of a pile of
yellow-orange goop.

Has anyone seen this before? My friend Jeff suggested that it is some sort
of bee or wasp, which sounds good to me. Whatever it is, I am terribly
impressed with the quality of the construction, not to mention the fact that
it happened inside a pitcher from which few insects can escape.

Philip
URL du jour: http://www.votenader.com/



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