# General Topics > Vivarium, Terrarium & Enclosure Discussion >  Carnivorus plants in your tank!!!

## froggy fool

I dont want to sound rude but useing carnivorus is quite silly. I keep these plants and read many books on them they can easly eat a frog. Poison dart frogs are small and can be eaten by a venus fly trap very easly that is wat they are made to do so please do not use them in your tank although they are very nice but you can get plastic ones 

This is just so you dont spend all your cash on a mint frog to feed a plant.

----------


## Colleen/Jerrod

> I dont want to sound rude but useing carnivorus is quite silly. I keep these plants and read many books on them they can easly eat a frog. Poison dart frogs are small and can be eaten by a venus fly trap very easly that is wat they are made to do so please do not use them in your tank although they are very nice but you can get plastic ones 
> 
> This is just so you dont spend all your cash on a mint frog to feed a plant.


This is very true. Fully matured Venus Flytraps can have leaves. Over an inch in size an could easily eat a dart frog or some of the other smaller species. Pitcher plants would equally be as bad since the inside surface of the Pitcher plants leaves is slick and unable to be climbed by insects/spiders/ and even frogs. Risky buisness placing these types of live plants within your enclosures.

----------


## Rat The Unloved

This is absolute bunk - to put it politely.  I did an article going over the types of carnivorous plants which could survive in vivaria (note: survive, not thrive) and which ones pose and do not pose significant dangers. I have raised carnivorous plants extensively. You can find the article here: Carnivorous Plants in Terraria and Vivaria.

Even fully grown, large-cultivar (such as "Big Mouth") VFTs will not consume ("eat") an adult frog over 1/2". They may "grab" it, but not only is the frog strong enough to overpower the trap, the frog is "verifiably too large" to the plant, and it will re-open to avoid damage. Traps will not "seal" on most large, or "struggling" prey items. They aren't worth the effort or damage they will cause to the plant. Only a "newly morphed toadlet" sized froglet, frog or toadlet would be in danger. Beyond that, not all cultivars of VFT attain the sizes quoted - some cultivars are exceptionally small, and would have trouble closing on a wingless fruitfly. Of course, there are also cultivars that no longer "trap", so... it becomes a moot point of the hobbyist does their research. 

The pitfall traps of plants like Darlingtonia, Heliamphora, Nepenthes and Sarracenia could pose a drowning risk to the frogs, but here's the kicker - numerous DF owners have reported their frogs BREEDING in the traps of pitcher plants, so I'm afraid the logic strikes out there as well. Large Sundews and Butterworts could pose a risk to a small DF, and juveniles due to their "flypaper" nature. Again, though - being flypaper they are poor choices for vivaria to begin with.

----------


## SkeletalFrog

Rat's 100% correct.  I've kept carnivorous plants outdoors for many years, and have yet to see any take down a vertebrate (however, I've never had big Nepenthes outdoors).

Plus, the carnivores I'd consider ideal for frog tanks would be terrestrial bladderworts, which have tiny subterranean traps and lovely, orchid-like flowers.

----------


## Colleen/Jerrod

> This is absolute bunk - to put it politely.  I did an article going over the types of carnivorous plants which could survive in vivaria (note: survive, not thrive) and which ones pose and do not pose significant dangers. I have raised carnivorous plants extensively. You can find the article here: Carnivorous Plants in Terraria and Vivaria.
> 
> Even fully grown, large-cultivar (such as "Big Mouth") VFTs will not consume ("eat") an adult frog over 1/2". They may "grab" it, but not only is the frog strong enough to overpower the trap, the frog is "verifiably too large" to the plant, and it will re-open to avoid damage. Traps will not "seal" on most large, or "struggling" prey items. They aren't worth the effort or damage they will cause to the plant. Only a "newly morphed toadlet" sized froglet, frog or toadlet would be in danger. Beyond that, not all cultivars of VFT attain the sizes quoted - some cultivars are exceptionally small, and would have trouble closing on a wingless fruitfly. Of course, there are also cultivars that no longer "trap", so... it becomes a moot point of the hobbyist does their research. 
> 
> The pitfall traps of plants like Darlingtonia, Heliamphora, Nepenthes and Sarracenia could pose a drowning risk to the frogs, but here's the kicker - numerous DF owners have reported their frogs BREEDING in the traps of pitcher plants, so I'm afraid the logic strikes out there as well. Large Sundews and Butterworts could pose a risk to a small DF, and juveniles due to their "flypaper" nature. Again, though - being flypaper they are poor choices for vivaria to begin with.


I guess I need to follow up on my reading. I have read that these plants can and will eat small vertabrates if they have traps large enough. I have and still keep flytraps. I've had some pretty large trap growth in the past but only during really humid summer months or fall. Interesting about the Pitchers being used for breeding. This probably benefits the plant also by absorbing the waste produced by the tadpoles. I don't know much about pitchers. Always wanted some of the to combine with flytraps since they grow near eachother in some areas. Perhaps its the people studying these plants that need to update their research :Wink:

----------


## Savannah

guess i could've done more research myself. lol looked at carnivorous plants for my tank. but they grow to big for my size tank, and didn't want to risk it with my frogs. Diffinitly will look it up. Its amazing what you learn on this forum. i love it!  :Smile:

----------


## froggy fool

I was simply saying that I have seen plants eat frogs no problem simply look at google images and I read many books about it vanus fly trap Dionaea will not let go of somethink that is moveing to much it will go tighter and tighter until it suffercates it. please dont take this to heart as there is some you can keep in your vivarium or terrerium like nepenthes tentaculata picher plant or little sun dews and many others, but please be carefull wat you pick. sorry if this came across wrong.

----------


## Savannah

> I was simply saying that I have seen plants eat frogs no problem simply look at google images and I read many books about it vanus fly trap Dionaea will not let go of somethink that is moveing to much it will go tighter and tighter until it suffercates it. please dont take this to heart as there is some you can keep in your vivarium or terrerium like nepenthes tentaculata picher plant or little sun dews and many others, but please be carefull wat you pick. sorry if this came across wrong.


no its all good didn't come across as wrong. i appreciate the corrections and advice. i wouldn't put them with frogs anyways, im parinoid as it is. lol but id use them for a just a plain terraium, nothing with an animal in it. to risky.  :Smile:

----------


## Rat The Unloved

> I was simply saying that I have seen plants eat frogs no problem simply look at google images


I'm sorry, but this is incorrect - there are images and videos of flytraps "grabbing" extremely small Froglets (compare to the moss). These are the same, recycled, old videos used to illustrate the "ferocity" of Flytraps. Except all it shows is the initial triggering and closing of the trap - not the seal which is absolutely essential for the trap to "eat" (CONSUME) the frog. In addition you'll notice that the frogs are often being forced from behind (by someone holding their legs, initially) into triggering said trap. 

I cannot stress enough the VAST difference between the trap mechanically triggering and "Grabbing", versus the long process of absorbing the rotting tissues ("eating").




> Dionaea will not let go of somethink that is moveing to much it will go tighter and tighter until it suffercates it.


http://"http://discoverthewonder.fil... "Closed" trap - it looks like a cage. There is enough airflow that NOTHING will suffocate inside it. Closed traps mean nothing to the plant. It is a simple mechanical reaction to the trigger-hairs being touched. A stiff wind can cause the trap to close. If the prey is large, struggles, does not get completely contained, or is THE WRONG TYPE, the trap re-opens in short order. 

I previously used to make little "love" tokens (like names on rice grains, and that sort of ge-gaw) by writing names on paper and having the flytraps "trap" them. The only way to keep the names in the trap is to sever it, thereby STOPPING the traps normal, biological, reaction of rejecting the unsuitable item. 

If the prey struggles it will continue to re-trigger the trap until the trap is effectively, chemically and biologically, "castrated" from any further attempts to close. The trap will go lax ("wilt"), and do the "open book" look, and thus pose no more risk to anything. This is THE LAST THING a VFT wants, because that's another "mouth" out of commission. :P

THIS photo shows a "Sealed" trap in the center - it has developed a viscous, gooey, seal around the entire open edge of the trap. The teeth have flexed outward (rather than caging inward) and it is during this phase ONLY that the trap can suffocate, or "eat" something. 

In order to establish this seal the prey must 1: be small enough to fit. 2: be immobile long enough 3: not have the ability to struggle free.  

So, it comes down to the following criteria for mortality to be possible, though not likely: 

1: The VFT needs to be of a large cultivar such as "Big Mouth" or "B52".
2: It has to be a cultuvar capable of closing AT ALL, some cannot.
3: The VFT needs to be an old, mature, specimen capable of forming large traps - so, 3 to 5 years of age. 
4: It has to be in a terrarium with inhabitants small enough to be "grab-able", and in a location where a frog is likely to walk into a trap.
5: The "grabbed" frog needs to be small enough, sick enough, or fragile enough to not struggle more intensely than a fly. 
6: The VFT must consider it "insect" (they evolved for bugs, not vertibrates). 

In short: about as likely as getting struck by lightening, though increasingly more likely the less attention and research someone pays to the topic.  But, on top of all of this: VFTs, while not especially dangerous, are just plain unsuited for vivaria due to their need to over-winter.  For anyone willing to put in the work, I would suggest the cultivars: 'Cupped traps','fused tooth', 'korean melody shark', 'petite dragon', and above all 'wacky traps'. Wacky traps takes several minutes to close, and has zero ability to capture prey. Petite dragon is too small to be of concern. "Melody shark" and "fused tooth" would never be able to cage in a frog long enough to be a concern, and "Cupped traps" can't even close. 




> sorry if this came across wrong.


Not wrong or mean-spirited, just factually incorrect.

----------


## froggy fool

I understand that this may not always be the case, that your frog gets eaten by a carnivorous plant. However, would you even dare risk losing your frog just because of a plant? I collect carnivorous plants and the other day, I found a huge slug trapped in it, being dissolved by the plant. The slug was at least three times as big as my frog, and I even found this picture of a bird being digested by a carnivorous plant. You are mostly referring to the Venus Fly Trap, however, I was referring to all carnivorous plants, even the plant grabbing the frog could seriously damage an arm or leg and would result in the death of the frog. So, that is what I was trying to get through to everybody; that the carnivorous plants are not the best choice for your terranium or vivarium, although as a collector of these plants I would love to keep them in with my reptiles, but I would not want to risk any harm to them. 

To everybody; ask yourself: 1. would you keep carnivorous plants with your frog (or reptile in general), posing a large risk of the frog being damaged or even killed? - just to make it look pretty?
2. would you not rather decorate your terrarium with plastic yet realistic looking carnivorous plants, that could NOT damage or cause harm to your frog? 
3. frogs do not spend their time in the wild, hopping around dangerous plants that they know can eat them, so why include them in their habitat? It would only stress them out.

----------


## froggy fool

and also the more that the hairs are triggered the more it shuts you must studdy this to know sorry.

----------


## Rat The Unloved

To be honest, I'm having some trouble reading your posts  - but I gathered that you were specifically talking about Flytraps. IF that's not the case, so be it... but I did very clearly address which types of VFT would be suited for "no risk", and that's at least something of benefit.

The point I think you're missing is that every thing we do in captivity is a risk to the survival of our frogs - just as anything in the wild would be. And that anyone taking the time to construct the habitats for their frogs would be wise to do their own research. 

You're not a bad guy by cautioning people, but a lot of the information you have is incorrect or else exaggerated. Yes, a VFT could grab a frog and scare the bejeebus out of it - so it would be best to include them in vivaria with larger species just to be safe (IF one included it at all, VFT are not suited to vivarai). Yes, a frog could drown in a nepenthes, heliamphora, darlingtonia, or sarracenia - so introducing them would be a calculated risk on the part of someone seeking a naturalistic spawning territory, just like they would with the introduction of film canisters and bromeliads (which are considered by some to be carnivores). Yes, a ping or drosera could flypaper a frog down, so again you'd probably want to house with larger specimens.

Like any other plant - it has to be suited to the occupants and conditions. And with that I'll bow out, because I think I'm just repeating myself.

----------


## SkeletalFrog

Matty, you *drastically* underestimate the strength of frogs.

Muscle is *strong*.  Really, really strong.  I do muscle physiology pretty much all day, every day, so this is kinda 'my thing'.  A while back, I did an isolated muscle test on a 7 gram Cuban tree frog ankle muscle - the muscle itself was 0.2 grams, and about the size of a Tic-tac mint.  *A muscle the size of a breath mint produced enough force to lift a full Coke can, with strength to spare.*

Now, dart frogs are unlikely to be as optimized for strength as a Cuban, but even using some ballpark assumptions about their scaling, muscle mass, and physiology, even a fresh metamorph should be able to produce more than enough force to push out from between those teeth, let alone a full adult.

----------


## froggy fool

I'm sure that they are strong enough to escape a venus fly trap. However, I don't think any poison dart owner would like to see their frog trapped in one in the first place. It's an unnecessary stress to place on them. 

The toxin in poison dart frogs' skin are usually either neurotoxins, cardiotoxins or interfere with muscle contraction. Since venus flytraps do not have nervous, cardiac or muscular systems, they would remain unaffected by the toxins. . .the frog however is not so lucky and it would be slowly dissolved by the enzymes produced by the plant's digestive system.

Also, if the frog was to be trapped in a Venus Fly Trap or any other carnivorous plant, and it does manage to escape (which I agree it probably would do) then the amount of struggle and the weight of the frog would probably seriously damage or break the plant. 

So I'm just saying that including carnivorous plants in your terrarium would be inconvinient.

----------


## SkeletalFrog

Well, looks like it's been definitively answered as "No":

Energetics and forces of the Dionaea muscipula trap closing 10.1016/j.jplph.2011.08.003 : Journal of Plant Physiology | ScienceDirect.com

The pressure between the two lobes of a Venus flytrap is about 6 psi, less than 40% of standard atmospheric pressure.  By contrast, muscle generates 32-43 psi (muscle cross-section determines force).

Ergo, the mechanical pressure a frog endures from a flytrap is likely no more stressful or harmful than a fairly thick leaf of any other tank plant dropping onto the frog.

----------


## KingCam

> even the plant grabbing the frog could seriously damage an arm or leg and would result in the death of the frog.


 That's such nonsense.  Venus fly traps don't close with overpowering force.  There is no way a venus fly trap could break a frog's leg.  How do I know? I keep several species of venus fly trap.  It's just a closing leaf, it's not like it's reinforced with steel and fortified with razor blades!

I normally try to avoid being rude on forums, but you sir need to stop voicing your opinions as if they are fact.  You are spewing misinformation, and clearly have no idea what you're talking about.

----------


## froggy fool

i am very bored with this  now

----------

