Friday 12 September 2008

A sticky end

This week I got just a little bit fascinated by insects caught on the sticky globules on the leaves of sundews. In the first photo a small insect is caught on Drosera whittakeri - I only ever see small insects on these plants. The other photos are Drosera peltata - some quite large insects get tangled up with this beauty. I reckon there's a PhD in what types of insects get caught and why, or maybe someone's already done it. The last photo shows the leaf after it has slowly curled in around the insect in order to absorb the nutrients.

4 comments:

mick said...

Great photos and a fascinating series.

Duncan said...

Great post Boobook!

Denis Wilson said...

Nice series of photos, Boobook.
Nicely observed.
I love Sundews.
Denis

Mosura said...

Interesting shots. I get D. peltata here but so far I only ever seem to see tiny insects on it.