The Venus Flytrap (Dionaea muscipula) is one of the world’s most recognizable carnivorous plants, captivating people with its lightning-fast, toothed traps. This unique plant is native only to the nutrient-poor, boggy soils of a small region in North and South Carolina. Like all plants, the Venus Flytrap generates its primary energy through photosynthesis. However, its insect diet serves as a nitrogen and mineral supplement, providing the nutrients that are largely absent from its native habitat.
The Actual Feeding Frequency
In its natural environment, the Venus Flytrap feeds very infrequently, perhaps only capturing a few insects over an entire growing season. This infrequency is necessary because the act of closing a trap and digesting prey is an energetically expensive process for the plant.
For cultivated plants, manual feeding should mimic this natural scarcity to prevent the plant from becoming exhausted. A good guideline is to feed only one trap every two to six weeks during the active growing season, which runs from spring into summer. The digestion process itself takes a considerable amount of time, typically lasting between five and twelve days, before the trap will reopen.
If the plant is grown outdoors, it is generally unnecessary to feed it at all, as it is highly effective at catching its own prey. The plant will only begin digestion after the prey is confirmed, which happens when the trigger hairs are stimulated multiple times after the initial trap closure.
Safe Prey Selection and Delivery
Selecting the proper prey size is paramount to the plant’s health, as the insect must be small enough to fit entirely within the trap lobes. A good rule is to choose prey that is no larger than one-third the size of the trap itself to ensure a complete, airtight seal. Prey items should be live or freshly killed insects, such as small flies, spiders, or crickets, which supply the necessary nitrogenous compounds.
The plant’s trapping mechanism is finely tuned to avoid false alarms, requiring two trigger hairs to be touched in quick succession, typically within 20 seconds. If you are feeding a dead insect, the initial closure is not enough to convince the plant a proper meal has been secured. You must gently stimulate the trigger hairs inside the closed trap using a small object like a toothpick for about 30 seconds. This mechanical stimulation signals the plant that there is struggling prey inside, prompting it to fully seal the trap and begin secreting digestive enzymes.
Common Traps and Feeding Errors
A common mistake is attempting to feed the plant items that are not insects, such as pieces of cheese, hamburger meat, or other human foods. These items contain high levels of fats and minerals that the Venus Flytrap cannot properly process. The trap will often rot, turn black, and eventually die because the soft food putrefies inside the sealed leaf.
Another frequent error is deliberately triggering a trap with no prey inside, often called a “dry close.” Because closing a trap requires a significant expenditure of energy, forcing a trap to close unnecessarily shortens its lifespan and wastes the plant’s resources. Each trap has a limited number of closing cycles before that leaf withers and dies.
Overfeeding is also a risk, especially for smaller plants, as feeding too many traps at once or feeding a single trap too often can quickly exhaust the plant’s energy reserves. Feeding should be stopped entirely during the winter dormancy period, as the plant’s metabolism slows drastically and it is unable to properly digest food.