Ertiocx's assorted carnivores

[Ertiocx]

Up periscope

 

[Ertiocx]

At least 4 rotifers caught in a single trap:

 

[Ertiocx]

First flower out of @Lloyd Gordon's Utricularia mat.
Seen here under white light & 365 nm UV:



Some digestive glands from an old dionaea trap seen at 200x.
You can see a brown filamentous fungus attacking a gland on the upper right:


Dionaea trigger hair, glands and more fungus seen at 50x:

 

[Lloyd Gordon]

I'm going to try the UV on my utric flowers!

 

[Ertiocx]

Here's a grain of pollen from the Utricularia flower shown above seen at 1000x.
Looks quite similar to many of the grains shown here (fig 1): https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0034666714000311


Left: fresh pollen
Right: swollen after being exposed to water


Here's a video of the pollen grain undergoing osmotic lysis after swelling up too much (4x speed):

 

[Ertiocx]

A digestive gland from the bottom of an old ventrata pitcher, seen at 200x magnification with oblique illumination:


Also a new B52 Dionaea:

It's a fresh division but is already huge. Very excited to see how it does.

 

[Ertiocx]

I really like this B52. It's making even bigger traps with really nice colour.



Here's lunch:

8x speed:

Picked up a schuppenstiel somewhere along the line:
Wasn't initially a fan of the wrinkly petioles, but now that the traps are getting larger and have some colour they actually look pretty nice.

 

[Ertiocx]

I love the glowing red visors under UV.




Something about this new trap makes it look particularly sinister.

 

[Ertiocx]

Some tiny Utricularia growing in a tub of moss is making pinhead sized flowers and fruits so I threw it under the microscope.


Fruit, 50x


Same fruit, crushed to reveal seeds, 50x

 

[Ertiocx]

Drosera aff. lanata ‘Flying Fox Creek, NT’ took a while to get established. It's very pretty.

 

[Ertiocx]

Left to right: King Henry, B52, Schuppenstiel in 6 cm, 9 cm and 6 cm pots respectively.
The B52 and Schuppenstiel look like the growth points are getting close to the edge of the pot, I wonder if I should pot them up soon.



Schuppenstiel:

 

[Ertiocx]

One of the three tiny heli seedlings I received from @Lloyd Gordon starting to take off. The other two aren't dying but haven't grown nearly as large.




B52 in need of repotting soon.

 

[Ertiocx]

My new aliexpress pots showed up today so I repotted the B52 and Schuppenstiel.
B52 went from a 9 cm to a new 12 cm pot.
Schuppenstiel went from a 6 cm pot to the old 9 cm pot.

Should be plenty of room now for them both to fill out.

 

[Lloyd Gordon]

I bought the same AliExpress pots.

 

[coconut]

I bought the same AliExpress pots.

The pots came without broken !!! Will take a look at Aliexpress...

 

[Lloyd Gordon]

One pot out of many had a chip but still usable. But they were so cheap.

 

[VarunA]

Those look good. I might have to look into aliexpress for square pots as well. I wonder if they have any of the bigger net pots.

 

[Ertiocx]

Those look good. I might have to look into aliexpress for square pots as well. I wonder if they have any of the bigger net pots.

The biggest I've found so far are 15cm squares. I ordered a couple for when my neps eventually outgrow their 9cm pots. There are a couple larger size pots also but they're round.

https://aliexpress.com/store/3084062

The pots are pretty high quality, they're made of thick plastic and are very stiff.

 

[VarunA]

awesome. thanks for sharing. maybe we can do a group order or something next time

 

[Lloyd Gordon]

AliExpress shipping is so cheap, there's no point in a group order.